OF THE DYEING
The dye, the tone, the richness, and colour value of a rug was, and still
is, an essential characteristic of the weaving of each class and region;
and it was formerly not only essential but exclusive, the dyes being often
trade secrets or, more truly said, tribe secrets.
Of course every one knows that the colouring of the yarn of the best
Oriental rugs is derived only from vegetable or animal dyes, and to this
is due their beauty and durability. It may be noted also, in parenthesis,
that it is the yarn and not the wool that is dyed. Alas, that modern
weavers, Oriental and Occidental, have learned to substitute mineral or
aniline dyes! These not only destroy the wool and fade badly, but when
the fabric is cleaned or wet by any chance the colours run, and leave
their stains and blemishes. Of course, too, they fail to give the
richness, depth, and lustre of the good old method. Generally, their
manifest crudity bespeaks the poor quality and coarseness of their make.
Some vegetable dyes also fade, but they fade only into softer and more
pleasing shades, and more delicate and harmonious blendings, as witness,
in many antiques, the soft and beautiful tones of pink, salmon, and fawn
which come from raw magentas, as the back of the rug will prove. But that
magenta dye was of the old school. Modern magentas seem never to fade away
gracefully and becomingly. It must be noted, however, while speaking of
the dyes used in the fine old rugs and in the best rugs of to-day, that
for one or two colours resort was, and is, had to mineral dyes. Many of
the best old Turkish specimens have thus suffered in their blacks and
browns, and many a museum exhibit is eaten to the warp where these
colours occur. It may be well to remember this, as some varieties of
Mousul and of Turkish weave, thus worn to the warp in spots, leaving the
other figures raised and in relief, are palmed off on the innocent
purchaser as rare, "embossed" pieces. Iron pyrites is the mineral from
which these black dyes are made, and some Turkish weavers seem to know no
vegetable black or brown. In some of the best Persians, Serabends
particularly, the green which is used in the borders has the same fault as
the Turkish blacks and browns; and if it does not "fade away suddenly like
the grass," at least it leaves the nap "cut down, dried up, and withered."
[Illustration:
PLATE III.
ANTIQUE KAZAK
FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. ERICKSON PERKINS
Size: 5.9 x 7.2]
The subject of the various dyes might be extended to a separate monograph,
for really the whole history of rug making depends upon the dyes used. The
day that the aniline, petroleum dyes came into use doomed the perfect
making of carpet or rug; and not all the strictest laws of the Medes and
Persians--which is to say, the Shah of Persia--have availed to prevent the
use of the mineral dyes, and the complete demoralization of modern
weaving. You may find even in choice, closely woven, artistic Shirvans and
Kabistans of fifteen and twenty years ago some few figures in certain
colours which are clearly and manifestly aniline. They are the strong reds
and especially the bright orange. And in some modern Kurdistans, which
should be free from guile, a few figures betray the same telltale glaring
_media_. Used with a sparing hand, as they are, they do not ruin a rug,
but they are none the less a blotch upon its fair repute. The theory is,
so far as concerns the new Kurdistans, for instance, that these few
mineral dyes are bought by the weavers from some traveller or agent by
chance and inadvertently, and without knowledge of their character.
Otherwise they would hardly be used for a few figures in a finely woven
piece, where all the other dyes are vegetable.
One expert Armenian has a sure test for mineral dyes in his tongue. When
in doubt he cuts a bit of wool from the rug, nibbles it a minute or so,
and then pronounces his sure verdict. But the test is a delicate one, and
the fruit of knowledge is, presumably, bitter.
Again, in speaking of colours and shadings, it may be interesting to know
why solid colours so often come in streaks, changing abruptly, for
instance, from dark blue to light blue, or dark red to light red. You may
have any of several explanations: that the weaver, dipping his wool into
the dye, stopped, for any trivial word or interruption, and the wool took
on a stronger hue; or, that another hand or one of the women or children
took up the work; or, again, that the plant, from which he bruised that
particular hue, gave out in his back garden. Any of these reasons may be
right. But the more credible one is to believe that the artistic weaver
knew how effective is this change of colour, and what a pleasing,
changing, varying light and shade it gives to his masterpiece.