A rug construction in which the weaver ties each knot of wool or silk pile yarn by hand around adjacent warp threads on a loom, then runs a weft through the row and beats it down. The cut knot ends form the pile, the warps and wefts form the foundation, and the warp ends become the fringe. A rug can take months or even years, and the work leaves subtle irregularities: patterns not perfectly symmetrical, opposite edges a few inches different in length, an uneven fringe. Authentic Persian, Oriental and Turkish rugs are hand-knotted, unlike hand-tufted rugs (sometimes sold as “handmade”) and machine-made ones, whose backs feel stiff and evenly aligned.
A rug made by punching pile yarn through a stretched cloth base with a hand-held tufting tool and fixing the loops with a glued backing, rather than tying knots by hand around warp and weft threads. Its back shows cloth and adhesive instead of individual knots and feels less soft than a knotted rug's. It ranks below hand-knotted and above machine-made rugs, does not last as long as a knotted rug, and is not considered a genuine Persian or Oriental rug. Because it is sometimes sold simply as "handmade", the term hand-knotted is the one that identifies a knotted rug.
A loose sales label for a rug made by hand rather than by machine. It is sometimes simply another word for hand-knotted, but it is not a guarantee of it: some dealers apply it to hand-tufted rugs, in which yarn is punched through a backing with a hand-held tufting gun. Hand-tufted rugs rank below hand-knotted ones, are not expected to last as long and are not considered authentic Persian or Oriental rugs, so hand-knotted is the term to look for in a description. Machine-made rugs rank lowest.
A hand-knotted rug from the weaving lands of Asia and the Middle East, usually named for the city or region it comes from and known for intricate designs. In the trade pairing “Persian and Oriental,” Persian means made in Iran and Oriental covers the other origins, such as Turkey, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and China, for example Pakistan-made Kazak, Oushak-design and Bokhara rugs or Afghan Khal Mohammadi rugs; used broadly, the word also takes in Persian rugs. Look-alikes from Pakistan, India or China are not Persian. Only hand-knotted rugs are authentic; hand-tufted rugs, which are sometimes sold as “handmade,” and machine-made rugs rank below. A rug’s country and city of origin tell a buyer what to expect of its typical colors and quality.
Colorants manufactured chemically rather than extracted from plants or animals. They dominate machine-made and hand-tufted rugs, where they give flat, uniform color, and are sometimes used for a few shades in otherwise naturally dyed hand-knotted rugs. They tend to bleed more readily than natural dyes under a damp cloth and to fade or age less gracefully. Experts read a pile that is lighter at the tips than at the base as synthetic dye faded by light, which points to a rug made in the late 19th century or later. Weavers choose between the two according to the colors they want.