How to Buy Persian Rugs

The core of buying well is a sequencing habit: establish completely what the object is before discussing what it costs. Sellers tend to merge those questions, because a story about a rug is easier to price than a rug.

Before you go

Decide the size first. Almost every regretted rug purchase is the wrong size, and size is the one thing that cannot be fixed later. Measure the room, mark the intended footprint with tape, and live with it for a day.

Set a real budget with a separate line for a pad and for cleaning. A rug pad is not optional — it is the cheapest thing you can do to extend the life of a rug, and it prevents the foundation grinding against a hard floor.

The five questions

Ask these before price. Write the answers down.

1. Where was it woven? A country is not an answer. A region is.
2. Roughly when? Ask for a decade and for the evidence behind it.
3. What are the pile and foundation fibres? Wool on cotton, wool on wool, silk?
4. Natural or synthetic dyes? And on what basis?
5. What restoration has it had? Reweaving, reselvedging, new ends, repiling.

Every one of these is checkable against the rug itself using the tests in identification. The point of asking is partly to get the information and partly to see how the answers are given. A dealer who answers plainly and shows you the evidence is a different proposition from one who answers with a story.

Inspecting in the shop

Ask for the rug to be laid flat, and ask for it to be turned over. Both requests are normal and a refusal is informative.

• Lay it flat. It should lie flat. Persistent waviness or curling suggests uneven tension or a damp history.
• Walk on it. Handle tells you a great deal about wool quality that looking does not.
• Check pile depth at the centre and at the traffic lines, with a fingernail.
• Look at it under raking light from the side — reweaving and repiling show as differences in sheen that are invisible face-on.
• Fold it back along a row to read the knot and to see the pile at its base, where the original colour is protected from light.
• Press a damp white cloth on a saturated colour. Any transfer means unstable dye.
• See it in daylight if you possibly can. Shop lighting is chosen to flatter.

Where to buy

Auction deserves a note. Hammer price plus buyer's premium is usually well below retail for comparable material, but auction houses do not warrant condition and you are expected to have inspected the lot. It rewards the buyer who has done the work in this guide and punishes the one who has not.

Before you pay

Get the description in writing on the invoice: origin, approximate age, fibres, and restoration. This is the single most useful thing you can do, and it costs nothing. A written description turns a verbal claim into something you have recourse on.

Agree the return terms explicitly, including whether you can return after seeing the rug in your own room.

For what the resulting number should look like, see what Persian rugs are worth. Once it is home, the maintenance is in caring for Persian rugs.