CAUCASIAN RUGS, DAGHESTAN AND RUSSIAN TYPES
Chapter VI
CAUCASIAN RUGS, DAGHESTAN AND RUSSIAN TYPES
The Daghestan rugs of Caucasia are only second in importance to those from Persian looms. An opinion is reserved, nevertheless, regarding antique Turkish weaves, which are hereinafter considered.
If history does not satisfactorily prove that the Caucasus was originally the northern part of Persia (as may have been, under Cyrus), Persian dominance and influence may be demonstrated, in textile art, by rug borders, patterns, and designs. The Shirvans, Kabistans, Chichis, Darbends, Karabaghs, all exhibit pronounced Persian characteristics, and show the educational power of the mother country of this handicraft. Fineness of weave, delicacy of hue, and chaste simplicity of design are distinguishing features of this group. But, as contrasted with the Persian patterns, the Persians use for their detail roses, flowers, palm leaves, etc., while the Caucasians gain similar effects from geometrical figures, angles, stars, squares, and hexagons, with small tilings, mosaics, and trellisings. The true and the beautiful was never better demonstrated by Euclid through angle, square, or hypothenuse. An old Chichi rug, like a drawing of Tenniel’s, will prove what grace may come without a curve and by angles only.
It is unfortunate that the best rugs of the Caucasus come from the large province of Daghestan, and that that general term is applied to them indiscriminately. Twenty or more years ago most of the Oriental rugs which were sold here to an uneducated and unappreciative public came by way of Tiflis, and for lack of knowledge were all branded with the common name of Daghestan. Thousands of beautiful Kabistans, Shirvans, Bakus, etc., were then sold for a song under the one arbitrary title. They would be priceless to-day, and yet the former commercial, vulgar use of the name leaves it in undeserved disrepute. As used in this chapter, it is intended to mark a distinction between certain of the Caucasian types, which it properly represents, and the Russian types from the same region, which are illustrated in the Kazaks and Yourucks.
