NAP.--Usually good wool or camels' hair of medium length.
ENDS.--Fringe at one end and hemmed web at the other.
BORDER.--Three to six border stripes, usually four. The characteristic feature is a broad outside band of camels' hair. The Herati border design is frequently used.
PREVAILING COLORS.--The natural camels' hair brown prevails with soft delicate reds, pinks, blues, and greens.
DYES.--Of the best in the antiques, but generally poor in the modern fabrics.
DESIGNS.--Pole medallion is almost universal. Field is usually filled with floral designs or a trellis arrangement. Antiques resemble animal skins.
SIZES.--Antiques come in all sizes. Moderns two to four by four to six and runners two to four by eight to thirty.
PRICES.--$1.00 to $3.00 per square foot. Antiques rare and expensive.
REMARKS.--The modern ones are poor. The antiques are handsome and durable.
This piece, like most of its class, has a nap which consists principally of natural-colored camels' hair, as is manifested in the central field and outer border. Like most Hamadans it also has a pole medallion in the centre of the field with corners to match. The weaver has adopted the Kurdish method of shading the field with camels' hair of different shades. The principal border stripe consists of alternate rosette and fish-bone motifs on each side of which there are small floral forms alternating in direction and connected by meandering vines.
STANTON RUG (page 110).--Like most of its class, this piece has a pile which consists mostly of undyed camels' hair. The colors, designs and border stripes are characteristic features, especially the motives in the outer border stripe, which are found in no other product. This piece has an unusually long nap, which not only adds to its wearing quality, but makes it lie better on the floor.
SYNONYM.--Isfayan. Sometimes, like the Feraghan, it is called Iran.
WHY SO NAMED.--After the city of Ispahan, the former capital of Persia, where they were made by expert weavers in the employ of the nobility at Ispahan, Teheran, and Saruk during the period of highest art.
KNOT.--Senna. Number vertically ten to twenty; number horizontally eight to fifteen; number to the square inch eighty to three hundred.