Every year has proved difficult to find out exactly when and where the next Iranian Arts and Crafts Exhibition will take place in Jeddah. This year was no exception. It appears that the sponsors of these wonderful exhibitions overlook one vital requirement when wanting the public to come and visit their exhibition, and that is advertising.
A telephone call from a carpet collector revealed that she had just heard that an Iranian arts and crafts exhibition was being held in Jeddah at the Al-Hamra Shopping Center on the first floor. The exhibition had already been open for six days and Nov. 22 was the last day. Realizing that it was already late that evening, I dashed down to the exhibition to view its offerings.
The exhibition displayed various forms of Iranian products such as carpets, oil paintings, stained glass mosque lanterns, brass curios, furniture, decorative tablecloths from Esfahan, clothes, honey, nuts... and even pots and pans for the kitchen.
However, conspicuous by there absence were the beautiful hand-painted, curvilinear, ceramic tiles from Esfahan (examples of which can be seen decorating the Iranian Consulate-General in Jeddah).
The exhibition was not crowded, but concentrated pockets of people could always be seen hovering around the three carpet stands. The array of classic city wool and silk carpets, their jewel-like colors iridescent under the artificial lights, was a sight that could not be ignored. The carpet exhibitors used every available space on the walls to hang fine wool and silk Nain-sheeshlahs, as well as silk Qums. Many Qums displayed the Bakhtiari design (paneled garden) that had weeping willows, botehs, floral vases and cyprus trees woven into individual square panels that were framed by irrigation channels. Other silk Qums displayed the classic hunting scene that depicted the Shah on horseback with a bow and arrow poised chasing an assortment of wildlife that included lions, tigers and dainty looking deer.
On the floor lay neat rectangular piles of wool Kashans that displayed the instantly recognizable drooping diamond, central medallion design with hanging pendants. Along with the swirling tendrils and Shah Abbas palmettes that were woven with a fluid symmetrical grace, the carpets appeared to dance before your eyes.
The Iranian weaving area of Tabriz was well represented with many of the silk-warped, pastel-colored Banam carpets having an 80 to 90-raj measurement (80 to 90 knots per seven horizontal centimeters).
It was disappointing, however, not to see an authentic Iranian tribal carpet represented in any shape or form at the exhibition. The exhibitors should not continually rely on the classic, city-produced carpets as the only examples of Iranian weaving at its best. Iran still has deep tribal weaving resources from which to draw from such as the Khorasan, the Khamseh Confederacy, the Bakhtiari region, for example, and some of these older, charming and uncomplicated tribal carpets, as coarse as they can be, are aesthetically beautiful in their own right and are no less desirable than the contemporary, posh, city carpets that dominate these exhibitions.
One of the carpet exhibitors called the Iranian Carpet Company (ICC) drew considerable interest. The ICC is owned by the Iranian government and comes under the direct supervision of the Ministry of Commerce. Interestingly, I have not seen any of their woven carpets in any of Jeddah’s carpet shops. After oil, handmade carpets are Iran’s largest domestic export. The ICC has offices in 106 cities and 650 villages. The company employs 24,000 workers in the great weaving centers such as Tabriz, Kashan, Qum, Hamadan, Meshed, Esfahan, Nain and in tribal areas such as Bakhtiari. The weavers employed by the ICC tie an average of 7,000 knots per day. Completed wool carpets will have between 50 to 75 knots per square centimeter and silk carpets have up to 85 knots per square centimeter. All of their carpets are guaranteed and are also accompanied with a certificate, which will declare details such as the materials used, the quality in terms of knots per square centimeter, the identification of natural dyes used and the historical background pertaining to the carpet’s design.
The name of the Iranian Carpet Company, along with their logo (vertical warp threads flanked by a Shah Abbas palmette), is often woven into a cartouche at the top end of the carpet. "We are the Rolls Royce of carpets," declared Morteza Yahyaee, the ICC director of foreign affairs. Yahyaee, who is from Tehran, had one of those faces that you think you have seen somewhere before. His smile was warm and with softly spoken English he mentioned that he had spent seven years of his life in the United States which were excellent. Yahyaee continued, "All of our carpets use natural vegetable dyes. Only rarely do we use synthetic colors when the natural source cannot provide us with a shade of color that we require."
The ICC buys most of its raw materials from within Iran thus supporting local businesses. The wool used for their elegantly woven carpets is taken from sheep all over Iran including sheep reared in the famous Bakhtiari region. The sheared wool is collected and sent to their wool-processing factory near Tehran where the wool is drawn, spun, and dyed. "All of our weavers operate in a clean, safe and happy environment," Yahyaee added.
To date, the largest carpet woven by the company was for the Sultan Quboos Mosque in Muscat, Oman. The carpet, measuring almost 5,000 square meters, was woven in individual manageable square sections. The sections were flown to Muscat accompanied by ICC weavers and were sewn together in stages until the carpet became a whole unit. It must have been like piecing together a huge jigsaw puzzle. The carpet has a beautiful Esfahan design that includes four-foot Shah Abbas palmettes, long sweeping tendrils and richly decorated serrated leaves. The central medallion has the gun baddie design. The carpet has approximately 1.5 billion knots and weighs 22 tons. It took 100 weavers to complete the carpet by working three shifts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for two years. It truly is a contemporary wonder of the world.
The ICC has been commissioned to weave another carpet of large proportions. It is presently being woven in Esfahan, Iran, for the Al-Alam Palace in Oman. The carpet will, upon completion, measure 450 square meters. Needles to say, Iran is by far the most prolific weaving nation of the world. The aura that surrounds the words "Persian carpet" is as strong today as it was when Persian carpet weaving reached its aesthetic climax during the reign of Shah Abbas the Great from 1587 to 1629.
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(Send comments to warps_wefts@hotmail.com, or visit www.warpsandwefts.com.)
— Arab News Features 19 December 2002
