Mashad was the capital of Persia under Nader Shah in the eighteenth century. The city is the administrative seat of Khorassan Province of northeast Iran. Once the province was much larger, reaching to the Oxus River, but much was lost to the various Afghan invasions of the eighteenth century, notably the city of Herat, now in Afghanistan. Mashad is a major marketing point for nomadic Turkmen weavers in Khorassan, Quchan Kurds, Baluchi tribes, and pieces from across the Turkmenistan and Afghan borders. Mashad is famous among Persians, not only as a carpet center, but as the burial place of the 8th Imam, Ali al-Reza, and a substantial religious complex has grown up around his tomb. This is a popular pilgrimage destination for Shiite Muslims.
The carpet industry of Persian rugs from Khorassan dates back centuries, but Mashad town weaving began only in the late nineteenth century. Northern Khorassan is a major wool producing area and where there is wool, there are carpets. [...]
Mashad was the capital of Persia under Nader Shah in the eighteenth century. The city is the administrative seat of Khorassan Province of northeast Iran. Once the province was much larger, reaching to the Oxus River, but much was lost to the various Afghan invasions of the eighteenth century, notably the city of Herat, now in Afghanistan. Mashad is a major marketing point for nomadic Turkmen weavers in Khorassan, Quchan Kurds, Baluchi tribes, and pieces from across the Turkmenistan and Afghan borders. Mashad is famous among Persians, not only as a carpet center, but as the burial place of the 8th Imam, Ali al-Reza, and a substantial religious complex has grown up around his tomb. This is a popular pilgrimage destination for Shiite Muslims.
The carpet industry of Persian rugs from Khorassan dates back centuries, but Mashad town weaving began only in the late nineteenth century. Northern Khorassan is a major wool producing area and where there is wool, there are carpets. Top quality wool comes from the tribal area of Turbat-Haidari and Nishapur. Quchan and Sabzawar also provide excellent carpet wools. The sheep are clipped twice annually; in spring and autumn, the latter fleece is softer; the former is more resilient and rich in oils. Many antique Mashad rugs, especially those woven with the Persian jufti knot, employ autumn clipped pile wool. The weavers thought that a carpet should be soft and luxurious, rather than hardwearing and sturdy. Nonetheless, these ‘autumn clipped’ antique rugs have withstood centuries of use clearly showcasing its durability.
There are two basic antique carpet types from Mashad; the Farsibaff and the Turkbaff. The Farsibaff is Persian (asymmetrical) jufti knotted, with knots tied over four rather than two cotton warps. The wefts are cotton. The process is quicker, but there is less wool per unit area. Open areas, free of design, are especially vulnerable to the jufti knot. The long pile partially compensates for the trick knotting. These antique Persian rugs can be particularly large, reaching up to 30 feet in length. There are few scatter sizes. The workshops must have been well established operations weaving ultimately for the European market as Mashads were not popular in the US at the time. The factories are owned and overseen by master weavers and have up to fifty looms. There are over 1000 looms in the city and there are additional looms in the villages around the town producing Mashad-style carpets, but in inferior qualities.
The other type of Mashad is the Turkbaff. Merchants from Tabriz set up in Mashad around 1900 and their workshops wove with the Turkish (symmetric) knot on cotton foundations as they did back in Tabriz. No jufti knots here, just an honest fabric, solidly woven with good quality spring clip wool. Turkbaff carpets tend to be in 9’ x 12’ and 10’ x 14’ sizes. Turkbaff carpets are particularly heavy with excellent wearing characteristics.
The weavers work from scale paper patterns and the designs are the creations of local artists. The medallion and corners layout, with all its infinite variety, is a standby, but allover designs with spiraling arabesques (islimi) or curvilinear trellises are also common. Open fields in navy or cranberry are a Mashad specialty.
The dyes are natural for the better rugs, synthetic for the cheaper products. Mashad dyers employ cochineal rather than madder for the reds. The uniform result is a dark purplish red which is now often modified to get the soft tones now popular in America. A classically pernicious practice of steeping the yarn for 24 hours in lime water before cochineal dyeing leads to brittle fibers and more rapidly wearing red areas. This method has become uncommon in modern times. Indigo is used for the blues and a dark navy is favored over turquoise, sky, and powder blues. There are ivory ground carpets which have a generally lighter palette and these are particularly prized.
In the 1920s and later, a group of master weavers began making workshop carpets of the highest level of quality, technically and artistically. They were led by Amoghli who signed his work and was active up until WWII. Other notable weavers include Makhmalbaf and Khamenei, no relation to the present politician. The patterns are generally dizzyingly complex, multi-level allover compositions based on spiraling vines, minutely drawn palmettes and the whole artistic armamentarium of the Persian carpet designer. The pile is clipped short, but the wool is like velvet and the dyeing is perfect. The execution is exact. "Rich" is not too strong a word for these carpets. Knot counts run from 600 to over 1000 per square inch and there is not a jufti knot among them. A broad silk selvage, often red, edges the sides and is continued on the ends. Originally they were woven for the residences of the Tehran nouveau riche empowered under Reza Shah. Amoghli was followed by Saber who continued the new tradition of ultra-fine quality carpets into the 1960s. There are no finer Persian rugs in the 20th century. Production has always been restricted and most are in large sizes. Be prepared to pay a handsome price for a very handsome carpet. Amoghli also commissioned rugs with simple Deco designs that work very well with mid-century modern interiors. These rugs are extremely popular today, yet much more affordable.
Antique rugs from Mashad range from the prosaic to the divine, from the workaday to the aesthetically superior. The best ones are heavenly. The rugs of the outlying towns will be treated under the 'Khorassan' entry.