Persian Rugs
Types of Persian Rugs
The named Persian weaving regions and what actually distinguishes them — knot type, density, palette and drawing — rather than the marketing shorthand.
3 min readintermediate
Origins & Traditions
Nepalese Rugs
Kathmandu's workshops, Tibetan technique in exile, and why Nepal became the place most contemporary designer rugs are actually woven.
Nepal is where a large share of the world's contemporary hand-knotted rugs is actually made, including most of what reaches Western markets under designer labels.
How it happened
Tibetan refugees arriving in Kathmandu after 1959 brought the Tibetan loop-knot technique with them. Swiss development aid in the 1960s helped organise it into an export industry, and by the 1990s Nepal was a major carpet exporter.
The industry then found the thing it was uniquely suited to. The loop technique handles abstract, irregular and textural design far better than knotting on a cartoon grid, and that is exactly what late-twentieth-century interiors started wanting: plain fields, washes of colour, cut-and-loop texture, silk highlights in a wool ground.
What Nepalese production does well
- Grading
- Quoted in knots per horizontal inch — 60, 80, 100, 150
- Fibres
- Tibetan highland wool, frequently blended with silk or allo
- Design
- Abstract, textural and custom work rather than traditional drawing
- Custom
- Colour matching and bespoke sizing at accessible minimums
The wool is the foundation: highland fleece with the resilience and lustre described in wool rug properties. Blends with real silk are common and, unlike viscose, honest — silk highlights in a wool ground give sheen where the light catches without the durability penalty of an all-silk pile.
Custom work is the other strength. Nepalese workshops are set up for bespoke colour and size at minimums that individual buyers can actually meet, which is why the interior design trade runs through Kathmandu. See custom rugs.
Reading the grading
The knot count is per horizontal inch, and this is where buyers get caught. A "100 knot" Nepalese rug is not comparable to a 100-knots-per-square-inch Persian rug — the Nepalese figure is roughly equivalent to a much higher KPSI number depending on the row spacing.
Judge Nepalese rugs against other Nepalese rugs, and Persian rugs against other Persian rugs. Cross-tradition density comparisons are close to meaningless, for the reasons set out in hand-knotted rugs.
Ethics
The Nepalese carpet industry had a serious child-labour problem in the 1980s and 90s and has been through two decades of certification schemes in response — GoodWeave being the best known and the most credible, since it involves unannounced inspection rather than self-declaration.
Worth asking
Whether the workshop is certified, and by whom. This is one of the few areas of the rug trade where a meaningful, independently audited answer exists, so a seller who cannot give one has chosen not to.
Buying
Wool quality first — compress and release, look for lustre at a low angle. Then grading. Then dye and finishing. The general sequence is in how to buy Persian rugs.
Contemporary Nepalese hand-knotted rugs are among the better values in new production: excellent wool, genuine hand-knotting, and prices well below fine Persian city weaving. See rug prices.
Related reading
Persian Rugs
The History of Persian Rugs
How Persian weaving developed from nomadic craft to court art and back into a global export trade, and why that history still sets prices today.
3 min readintermediate
Moroccan Rugs
Types of Moroccan Rugs
Beni Ourain, Azilal, Boucherouite, Beni Mrirt and the flatwoven Kilims — which tribe wove what, and why almost everything sold as "Beni Ourain" is not.
4 min readintermediate
Oriental Rugs
How to Identify an Oriental Rug
Which weaving tradition is it? Knot type, foundation, palette and format narrow an unknown rug to a region in about ten minutes, with no equipment.
4 min readintermediate
Kilim Rugs
Types of Kilim
Slit-weave, soumak, cicim and jijim are four different techniques sold under one word — plus the regional traditions, and how to tell them apart by hand.
4 min readintermediate
Persian Rugs
Kashan Rugs
The most recognisable Persian city weave — dense wool, a formal central medallion, madder red and indigo — and how to tell a good Kashan from a commercial one.
2 min readintermediate
Common questions
Are Nepalese and Tibetan rugs the same thing?
Frequently the same object. The technique is Tibetan; since 1959 most of the weaving has happened in Kathmandu. A rug described as Tibetan is very often Nepalese-made, and both descriptions can be honest — one names the method, the other the place.
What does "100 knot" mean on a Nepalese rug?
Knots per horizontal inch. 60 knot is standard commercial, 80 is good, 100 is fine and 150 or above is exceptional. It is not comparable with knots per square inch quoted on Persian rugs, and converting between them is a common way to be misled.