Sarouk
rugs are made in a rather narrow range of styles
and qualities. Rarely do you see poor quality
rugs they are also rarely any better that
good quality. It is unheard of to see Sarouk/Sarough
rugs in the same grades as the best Isfahan Rugs or Kerman rugs and carpets. I
can not remember a workshop grade Sarouk and
there is no sign of the fine cartoon designers
that we see in other cities. The Sarouk from the
1900 at least seems to have been designed by
Westerners.
With the loss of the European market in W.W.I the
market shifted to a rug called The American Sarouk . As Cecil Edwards told
us in The
Persian Carpet The American Sarouk had certain
distinctive characteristics that made it popular: P. R. J. Ford
suggests that the American Sarouk was originally produced
by Mr. S. Tyriakian
the Arak representative of K. S. Taushandjian
of New York in the early 1920s1.
11 millimeter pile (.44 inches) deep pile. This
was long enough to stand up to a double alkali
bleaching after which it was painted.
Knot density from 9 by 10 to 10 by 12 knots to
the square inch.
Mill spun cotton warps and the second thinner
weft is mill spun the straight weft was hand
spun.
Rose field with floral sprays framed by a blue
border.
The first European to set up a carpet business in the
Sarouk area was very likely Hotz and Son. In a reference
to Hotz and Ziegler Reinhard Hubel attributes the pastel
shades to Ziegler which suggests that Hotz was using
natural dyes.
A.P.H. Hotz (1855-1930)
At the age of 19 Albertus Hotz went to Persia to
engage in commercial activities like oil prospecting,
coal mining, banking and the carpet weaving industry. In
1884 he moved the seat of his company to London. In 1895
his business failed, but he remained in London until
1902. After a four-year stay in the Netherlands Hotz
accepted the post of consul of the Netherlands in Beirut,
which he held intermittently until his retirement in
1921. He died in Switzerland in 1930.
Hotz was an avid collector of books and maps. In 1925
he donated part of his collection, mainly maps and
atlases, to the Royal Geographical Society, of which he
was a fellow. After his death his widow Lucy Woods
donated his collection of 15,000 books together with a
great number of papers, pamphlets and photographs to
Leiden University Library. Well represented in the book
collection are Middle Eastern travelogues and diaries. A
printed catalogue of the books appeared in 1935-1936: Catalogus
A. Hotz, 2 vols., Leiden (Bibliotheca Academiae
Lugduno-Batavae, Catalogus, vols. 27, 34). The
Hotz Collection / Oosterse collecties
Late Twentieth Century Sarouk
Sarouk rugs are still thick but they are no
longer painted. In the second half of the
twentieth cream field Sarouks are becoming more
popular.
Prior to the introduction of the American
Sarouk these carpets represented the best of the
Sarouk production. They were attributed to the
village of Feraghan but were likely made in a
number of villages.
Once the American Sarouk took off these began
to disappear. These pieces are highly desirable
in today's market and this one sold for just over
500 dollar per square foot ($74,000) at
Sotheby's New York, when it went up for auction
in 1998.
From the collection of the Mosque of the Imam
Reza:
This is a Mahal Carpet. Mahal is a grade
of Sarouk that is thinner than an American
Sarouk. This is one of the rugs deaccessioned
from the collection of the Mosque of the Imam
Reza when the Mosque sold off pieces of it's
collection to raise funds.
Size: All sizes made. carpet sizes are
more common.
Structure: Asymmetrical knot open to the
left. Ranges from 60 to 300 knots per square inch
with the American Sarouk averaging 90 to 120 knots
per square inch.
Yarn Spin: Z.
Warp: Cotton
Weft: 2 shots cotton. First shot is
thicker and straight and the second is thinner and
sinuous. Deeply depressed knots with a warp offset of 85
to 90 degrees.
Pile: 2 wool singles.
Ends: Overhand knots with warp fringe.
Selvages: 1 cord plain wool.
Handle: Medium. American Sarouks have a
heavier handle while Feraghan Sarouks and Mahal rugs
have a thinner suppler handle.
Further Notes:
Similar Rugs
Feraghan Sarouks are very similar
to the Mohtashem Kashan rugs in handle and
structure. An attribution clue is that that
Mohtashem Kashan rugs have lavender silk
selvages.
Ziegler-Mahal
Ziegler Rugs of Arak - In 1883, Ziegler
and Co., of Manchester, England,
established a Persian carpet manufacture
in Sultanabad (now Arak), Iran, employing
designers from major Western department
stores, like B. Altman and Liberty of
London, to modify fanciful 16th- and
17th-century Eastern designs for the more
restrained Western taste. Using highly
developed dying techniques (which Ziegler
futilely attempted to copyright) and the
best artisans from the region, Ziegler
created rugs with bold, allover patterns
and with softer palettes than their
vibrant Persian counterparts. Ziegler
rugs developed an almost immediate
following, especially among newly monied
Western industrialists; early collectors
included the Guinness family, the owners
of the stout-beer manufacture, who laid
them in Elveden Hall, their Suffolk,
England, estate. http://www.farsinet.com/arak/
The key to understanding Ziegler Mahal
carpet is that Ziegler organized
production on their own looms with their
own designs. Ziegler designers started
with the standard Persian designs such as
forked tendrils, palmettes, and rosettes.
