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ON FELT
Volume III Number 5
September 1985


Travellers to the rug weaving East did not stint the mention of felt. A major
observer of Persia of the 1670's, Chardin, set forth the household furnishings
paradigm:


> "The floors are covered, firstly with a heavy thick felt, and under a handsome
> rug, one or two, depending on the size of the room. There are those rugs which
> are sixty feet long, and which two men aren't able to carry. On top of this
> rug, they place out against the wall, all around the room, some little pads
> three feet in size, which they cover with covers, which aren't as thick as
> Spanish cloth, made of calico, stitched with gold which cover the pads coming
> over the edge a foot or a little more...These are the chairs of the
> Orient...squares of good velours or of heavy brocard..." (1)

In one short passage Chardin reveals the richness of decor and the variety of
fabric involved in outfitting a room. He commented elsewhere that Persians also
made very fine and very light felts which were used above the rug, in order to
make things softer and to control humidity, (2) and noted, as well, the presence
of felt prayer rugs.

This use of felt along with other textiles is remarked repeatedly over the
years:


> James Hanway, in the 1740's, on the home of the principal merchant in Casvin:
> "...the floors are covered with large worsted [fine spun] carpets; and on the
> sides of the room are felts about a yard broad, and are generally two or three
> yards long; these are called naemets...and are made either with wool, or
> camels hair, and being very thick and soft, are used for sitting upon."
> 
> J. M. Tancoigne, describing Persian houses in general, c. 1810: "The interior
> of a Persian apartment contains no other furniture than one of those beautiful
> carpets, so much esteemed in Europe, and three felts of extremely fine
> texture, of which the two narrowest run the length of the room; the widest is
> placed at the end near the windows, and is called mesned, or the place of
> honor"(4)
> 
> Henri-Rene d'Allemagne, c. 1910, in his general summary of furnishings,
> observed that the standard Persian floor covering was thick local felt. (5)

Felt in Use

Travellers in Persia saw felts in many places. Fraser in the 1820's visited the
most powerful minister in Meshed, who sat "...upon a thick numud, that stretched
all along the top [upper end] of the room..." (6) and similarly encountered
felts ("beautiful numuds and rich carpets") at Sari in Ghilian province (7);
Keppel, around 1810, noted them at Hamadan ("fitted up with nummuds and
carpets") (8) and also met with them while at audience with the Kajar Shah
("seated on his heels on some doubled nummuds" ) (9); Ousley at this time also
saw and illustrated felt floor covering in the Shah's audience chamber (10);
Marsh, in 1850 near Urumiah, commented on them ("around the carpet at the end
and sides of the room, some three feet wide") (11); Morier, c. 1810, observed,
"The Musnud in Persia is a thick felt carpet, placed across the room, at the
farthest extremity from the door..." (12); and, a Persia veteran of the 1890's,
Sykes, commented that the typical floor covering of Kerman was a huge felt,
covered with a blue and white drugget (coarse material) in summer and a carpet
in winter. (13)

In brief, felt, usually referred to by Europeans as "numud", served both as a
basic floor covering and as a seating material, sometimes for places of
distinction. This use was widespread throughout the geographic reaches and the
socio-economic levels of Persia. And felts were described:





> Oliver St. John bought one outside of Kerman, with an "intricate" pattern in
> blue, red, and green; (14)

> James Fraser described them as "sometimes highly ornamented with flowers, and
> other devices, in various colours"; (15)
> 
> 
> 
> Colonel Stuart while on duty in Northwest Persia observed that they were
> "usually of a drab ground, partially ornamented with a gay pattern"; (16)
> 
> 
> 
> Percy Sykes placed manufacture of "delicate fawn-brown" small felts in Kerman;
> (17)
> 
> 
> 
> Henri-Rene d'Allemagne observed that felts were made out of all sorts of wool,
> with brown as the dominant color, and frequently decorated in patterns with
> colored wool, citing the best as thick, higher than 3 centimeters; (18)
> 
> 
> 
> Charles MacGregor stated that Taft in Kerman province was renowned for felt
> manufacture but was told that the products of Kerman city were best, and
> bought one "of a beautiful green colour ". (19)



Felt in Commerce

These widely used objects naturally had a commercial dimension. Various locales
with significant felt manufacture mentioned by 19th century travellers are:
Hamadan; Kerman; Taft; Yezd; Cain, Nichapour, and Boudjnourd (Khorassan);
Ispahan; Casvin; and Azarbaijan. Placements of felt in bazaars, i.e. actively in
trade, are few, but do exist -- Teheran bazaar in 1875 (20), Tabriz bazaar in
1875. (21) Felt's presence in the Tiflis bazaar in 1824 involved manufacture as
well as sale, and felt also appeared on the city's export and import products
list. (22) It is not odd that the ballad of Kurroglou, the bandit-minstrel of
Northern Persia, would contain the line, "Let the felt-carpet be of the
manufacture of Jam..." (in Northeast Persia). (23)

Nomadic Felt

Just as felts were used and produced extensively in Persia and were articles of
commerce, it is also the case that felts were a key element in the humbler
circumstances of nomad encampment, both within and without Persia. There were,
for example, Turkmen felts, articles traded by the Western Turkmen near the
Caspian, in both Asterabad (24) and in Teheran (25). Some Yomud products are
described as "variegated with red and green arabesques". (26) There were Kalmuk
felts near Astrachan, "two kinds...grey and white". (27) In nomad tents not far
from Casvin there were "rugs...in thicker felt". (28) Early in the 19th century
the Eastern Turkmen furnished Bukhara "felts in goat hair, to serve as capes".
(29) Noteworthy is the respected product of the Kirghiz, as seen in the Bukhara
carpet bazaar in the late 19th century: "...and splendid red, blue, black, or
white felt carpets (kigis), sometimes with patterns in geometrical designs, all
the latter made by the Kirghiz tribes." (30) A visitor with the paleocaucasian
Ingoush in the Daghestan Mountains at the turn of the century noted "twice as
many felt rugs of different colors, folded". (31) What these latter looked like
can readily be determined by a glance at Daghestan Decorative Art. (32)

Among nomadic peoples felt had steady usage as a door curtain. One very early
notice is that of William of Ruberick in 1253, among the Turkic tribes on the
plains north of the Caucasus: "Before the door they hang a felt curiously
[finely] painted over, for they spend all their coloured felt in painting vines,
trees, birds, and beasts thereupon." (33) Many period photographs and some
travellers' comments attest the wide presence of the door flap, as with
Brocherel on the Kazak yurt -- "The entrance is closed by a blind made of felt,
which is raised and lowered at will." (34) Or with Morier near the Araxes river
of the nomads there -- "A curtain, curiously [finely] worked by the women with
coarse needle-work of various colours, was suspended over the door." (35) And
with Curtis on the Turkmen dwelling -- "A curtain of felt, made in their own
tents, serves for a door." (36)

The Lessons of Felt

So felt was ubiquitous -- covering, cushion, door. Chardin gave the details of
their milieu, as did others, such as Keppel, moving through Naketchevan early in
the 19th century -- "...when we rode by their houses about sunrise, and saw them
reclining on curses or wooden frames covered with carpets of felt nammeds, or
lying under lehafs or quilts on the flat roof..." (37), and Yeghiazarof
describing Russian Kurds at the end of the century -- "Along one side of the
room is built a platform of mud or stone, on which are piled large saddlebags,
carpets, felt rugs, and cushions, covered with fine woolen rugs of elegant
patterns...At night preparations for sleeping are made by laying felt mats on
the floor, on which are placed cushions, stuffed with wool, and woolen rugs
(palassy) to serve as blankets. (38)

Since felt is also unavailable, why attempt to grasp its presence and use?
Broadly speaking, because rugs when in the West are out of their true
environment, and a part of that environment consisted of felts. While in general
it seems better to be informed, this matter of context may hold some practical
advantage as well. For example, the speculation that heavy thick rugs were for
warmth and hence came from upland settings is not so plausible given an
understanding of the use of felt. Or, take the matter of the felt door curtains
used throughout Central Asia. The term, engsi, today means a door rug not
decorated with a gul design. But to know the traveller reports on "musnuds", the
place or seat of honor which was sometimes of felt, is to wonder whether the
same situation might not have existed with respect to door flaps, that is, that
construction and materials varied. Indeed, the truth about dwelling curtains
perhaps is not a monism, but rather something more complex and more interesting.

Moreover, there may be some future understanding to be gained as well; since
felts and rugs were used together and were both decorated, there may possibly
have been some common design elements. The photographic record of the past thus
becomes additionally interesting. The main point, however, is that an
understanding of what interiors were like, including the role of felt, makes it
possible to move from an appreciation of a rug as an isolated decorative art
object to a satisfying appreciation of that art object as cultural artifact as
well.



And, a taste for felt can lead to other things, such as knowing its symbolic use
-- high and low, sacred and secular. These insights are easily to be gotten from
a slim charmer, The Myth of Felt, by Leonard Olschke. (39) Felt's role in Mongol
funerals and coronations, its function in the mourning of the death of Oljaitu
in Tabriz in 1316 -- these things and more are to be found in a fine book making
good use of the humble cloth as a net thrown wide to capture the places and
people of a time past. Another keeper for the rug collector's library.

Notes



Voyages du Chevalier Chardin, en Perse, ed. L. Langles, Paris, 1811, Vol. IV, p.
18/19. Research Report translation.
Chardin, op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 155.
Hanway, James, An Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea,
London, 1753, Vol. I, p. 229.
Tancoigne, J.M., Journey Into Persia, London, 1820, p. 98.
d'Allemagne, Henri-Rene, Du Khorassan au Pays des Backhtiaris, Paris, 1911, Vol.
II, p. 47.
Fraser, op. cit., Appendix B, p. 475.
Fraser, op. cit., Part IV, p. 34.
Keppel, George, Travels, London, Third Edition, 1827, p. 94.
Ibid., p. 137.
Ousley, William, Travels, London, 1823, p. 133.
Marsh, Dwight, The Tennessean in Persia and Koordistan, Philadelphia, 1869, p.
57.
Morier, James, Second Journey Through Persia, London, 1818, p. 195.
Sykes, Percy, Ten Thousand Miles in Persia, London, 1902, p. 200/1.
St. John, Oliver, Eastern Persia, London, 1876, Vol. 1, p. 101.
Fraser op. cit., Part IV, P. 34.
Stuart, Lt. Co ., Journal of a Residence in Northern Persia, London, 1854, p.
160.
Sykes, op. cit., p. 200/1.
d'Allemagne, op. cit., p. 47.
MacGregor, C.M., Narrative of a Journey Through the Province of Khorassan in
1875, London, 1879, p. 65/6.
Orsolle, F., Le Caucase et la Perse, Paris, 1885, p. 233.
Thielman, Max, Journey in Asia, Vol. 2, p. 60.
Klaproth, Julius, Tableau Historique...du Caucase, Paris, 1829, p. 116.
Chodzko, Alexander, Specimens of the Popular Poetry of Persia, London, 1852, p.
99.
Fraser, op. cit., Part IV, p. 15.
Orsolle, op. cit., p. 233.
Ibid., p. 361. Research Report translation.
Hommaire de Hell, Voyages..., Paris, 1843, p. 246. Research Report translation.
Orsolle, op. cit., p. 202. Research Report translation.
de Meyendorff, Georges, Voyage d'Orenbourg a Boukhara, Paris, 1826, p. 217.
Research Report's translation.
Olufsen, O. The Emir of Bokhara and his Country, London, 1911, p. 532/3.
Baddeley, John, Rugged Flanks of Caucasus, London, 1940, Vol. 1, p. 249.
Tcherkov, 0., Daghestan Decorative Art, Moscow, 1971, p. 226-228.
"The Remarkable Travels of William de Ruburquis", in John Pinkerton, Voyages and
Travels, London, 1811, Vol. 7, p. 28.
Brocherel, Jules, "The Kirghiz" (read Kazaks), The Scottish Geographical
Magazine, Vol. V, p. 399.
Morier, op. cit., p. 251.
Curtis, William, Turkestan, The Heart of Asia, New York, 1911, p. 116.
Ouseley, op. cit., p. 436.
Yeghiazarof, "The Russian Kurds", trans. W. A. Taylor, The Scottish Geographical
Magazine, Vol. VIII, 1892, p. 313.
Olschke, Leonard, The Myth of Felt, Univ. California Press, Berkeley and Los
Angeles, 1949.

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