A Room Without A Rug Looks Empty & Unfinished

A Very Beautiful & Decorative Fine Antique Chichi Rug from Caucasus

  Wool on wool. Hand knotted. This is an antique Chichi rug from Caucasus and it is a very special one . The size is much bigger than the normal Chichi rug and the quality of this rug is very high. The rugs from this part do come under the category of Shirvan rugs. Chichi rugs are finly woven with good quality wool and have beautiful colour combination. This one has all over design resting on a brown background. For more information on Chichi& Shirvan please read articles below.

AGE: Circa 1900/1920s.                       SIZE: 1.46 x 1.20 m - 4'.10" x 3'.11" ft.        CONDITION: The pile is evenly down with some areas of slight wear. It is not worn out. Please refer to images    COLOURS:Brown off white,  red, antique gold.            ESTIMATE: US$3000 to US$3500.               All goods will be shipped after the clearance of the payment.         STOCK NO; LW8584-1-404

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Ø     Shirvan is one of the principal weaving areas of the Caucasus, stretching from the central east coast some three or four hundred kilometres inland. Located within it are several towns, which, according to Kerimov and Schurmann, have become associated with particular designs; these include Bidjov, Marasali, Khila, Surahani, Baku, and Saliani. Shirvan weave is much finer in texture and quality than other Caucasian rugs and this can be very obvious on Shirvan Kilims (flatweave). The Caucasian flat-weaves, like their Anatolian and Persian counterparts, have a boldness of design and vividness of colours, which, many people would argue, are virtues more consistently present in such pieces than in pile-knotted rugs.

CHICHI

Rugs are woven in a cluster of villages in the vicinity of the Azerbaijanian city of Kuba. Most rugs labelled as Chichi in the West are characterized by a particular border in which large rosettes are flanked by diagonal bars, while the field is ordinarily dark blue and covered with small, repeating geometric figures, often of several types. Chichi rugs are among the more finely knotted Caucasian rugs, and many have cotton wefts.

Chi-chi Rugs" or Tchetchen. — The name given in the trade to the textiles of certain tribes and some colonies of sedentary artisans is a corruption of Tchetchen, the tribe whose chief habitat is in the mountains north of Daghestan. The nomad tendency to individual conceit in design is apparent in many "Chi-chis". Moving from place to place, too, these rovers who make them pick up suggestions from this or that wandering company of shepherds with whom they come in contact. These patterns, therefore, vary indefinitely, and this very condition is made a cloak to enable unscrupulous dealers to sell as "Chi-chi" the products of other districts. Genuine "Chi-chi", of which the older examples are as good rugs as need be, will be found to conform in certain points to the Caucasian notions of ornamentation, although strangely enough a marked Persian tendency is to be noticed. The ground is frequently filled with small patterns — rosettes, scrolls, compact geometrical tree patterns, pears, and so forth — arranged in a manner similar to that of Kabistans and some Kurdistans. For want of other name this may be called a grill pattern. Usually the transverse line separating the rows in the "Chi-chi" is straight instead of serrate, as it is in the Kabistans.

Other pieces have two or more main figures, crosses, oblongs, stars or something of the sort, composing the central design, as in the Daghestans, and the remainder of the ground filled in with varied figures, disconnected and usually of the conventionalised flower order. There is a generous allowance of border stripes, three and sometimes four, their patterns alternating between geometrical and floral devices. The reciprocal trefoil, to which reference is made in connection with the rugs of Karabagh, is extremely frequent here. The general tone of the "Chi-chis" is dark and seemly. Blue predominates as a ground colour. Some few specimens are in a higher key by reason of having pronounced border designs in bright yellow.

To acquire a correct idea of the tribes who make the "Chi-chi" rugs discrimination must be made between nomads and nomads. These of the Caucasus of the present day must not be confused with the lawless Bedouins of Mesopotamia, the turbulent vagrants who infest Kerman, or the restless Tartars who live by foray throughout Turkestan.

The Tchetchen nomads inhabiting these northern hills move with their flocks in quest of food and water, and the sphere of their wanderings is seldom more than a hundred square miles. Winter finds them in the lowlands; spring sees them starting with their sheep for the hills again. The plateau where a flock is pastured is the temporary domain of the tribe. The individual holds no land.

There have been wild wars between these shepherd tribes in the past, but the Russian government is scattering so thoroughly the seeds of civilization that it is doubtful if at the end of the next decade aught will remain here of the strange tribal life which has prevailed since the dawn of history.