Rugs by Origin

Vintage Rugs by Origin

Persian and Turkish weaving, town by town, from finely knotted Tabriz workshop rugs to village pieces woven from memory in the Zagros mountains.

Start with the two great traditions

Persia and Anatolia

Almost everything we sell was woven in one of two traditions. Persian rugs, from the towns and villages of Persia, cover an enormous range, from finely knotted workshop pieces drawn on paper by a named designer to village rugs woven from memory with a confidence no workshop ever reproduces. Turkish rugs, from Anatolia, tend toward symmetrical knotting, bolder geometry and softer, chalkier palettes.

Attribution to a specific town is a professional reading of structure, knot type and density, palette, dye character, wool and design vocabulary. It is offered in good faith and not as a certificate, very few vintage village rugs carry documentation, and anyone offering laboratory certainty about a hundred-year-old piece is telling you something they cannot know. Where we are less sure, we say so rather than rounding up to a more marketable name.

Map

Where Persian and Turkish rugs are woven

The map is divided into the towns and regions we have written a guide for, and each area shows a rug from our collection woven there. Hover over an area, or tap it, to see the whole rug and the design the town is known for.

Each area is drawn to the nearest weaving town, as a guide rather than a border, and is filled with the center of one rug from our collection. We do not sell Oushak rugs, so that area carries a woven motif instead. Regional and tribal names (Baluch, Bakhtiari, Lori, Torkaman, Anatolian) are placed where those rugs are mostly woven. Where two towns sit very close together, a short line runs from the number to the town.

Persian weaving towns

Thirty-five regions, each with its own hand

Turkish weaving regions

Anatolian village and workshop rugs

Does origin matter when you’re choosing?

Less than people expect. Origin tells you about structure and tradition, and it is genuinely interesting once a rug is in your house, but almost nobody falls for a rug because of where it was made. They fall for the color, the scale and the drawing, and then find out it is a Hamedan.

Browse by origin if you already know what you like, or if you are building on a piece you own. If you are starting from a room rather than a tradition, color and size will get you there faster.

Browse the wider collection

Not sure which tradition you’re drawn to? These are the easiest places to start.

Other ways to browse

Shop all rugs

Further reading: The story of Heriz: geometry from north-west Persia.