In another thread, Wendel Swan mentions the fact that velvet ikats, when viewed head-on, show a red tinge. The reason is that the velvet pile (is "pile" the right word?) is very short, and the wefts, which are red, can be seen when the textile is viewed this way.

I wondered whether some of the "stray reds" in Turkmen weavings might simply be textiles with red wefts that have worn thin in places, so the weft color shows through. That would give the "stray reds" a distribution that might be misinterpreted in a photo as being abrash.

Clearly, Thacher's piece is not such an example, and I assume that if the Hoffmeister pieces had such an explanation for the red areas he would have said so - it would certainly be obvious to anyone holding the piece in his hands.

Anyway, I checked the technical analyses of the three pieces from The Rickmers Collection that are cited in the opening essay. One, the Tekke germetch (Plate 17) does have red wefts, and this could explain the stray color in it.

Steve Price

-Red wefts can bleed to. I've seen this in new rugs. The top doesn't show this, but when you open up the pile, it shows. I wonder what these rugs will look like, when used and old.

A rug with a stain, is a rug with a stain.
It will last a lot longer, because nobody is prepared to pay any money for a rug with a stain. I sometimes wonder why certain rugs did become of age.

-In the washing process, one rug can contaminate an other rug.

-Sheep get stamped at the bottom. Can't tell why in proper English. I'm sorry.

-Sheep can bleed when shaved. Nowadays it's mostly done electric, but in the old days, you needed a very sharp razor.

Just a few extra thoughts.

Best regards,
Vincent

I'm sure that the red dyes in red wefts of new rugs can bleed, as you note. The problem with using this as an explanation for stray reds in old Turkmen rugs is that people who seem to know what they're talking about insist that natural reds never bleed. As surprising as that seems to me, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I accept it.

Bloodstains on the white wool arising during shearing, as you point out, could be why some white wool has red tinges. Michael Wendorf noted (in another thread) that reddish tinged wool also occurs naturally.

I wonder whether there are ways that we could discriminate between some of these in individual rugs.

Steve Price

I have some problems with the theories for straying red thus far put forward.

Red wine does not, at least in my own recent experience with it on cotton, produce a lasting red. The stain turns purplish. Blood also doesn't remain red as a stain. It turns brown.

While wool can have a reddish tint, it is highly unlikely that any weaver making a carpet as expensive and refined as the Rickmers Saryk would use tinted white wool, whether the tinting arose from natural colors in the fibers themselves or by staining.

Further, how would enough of either blood or wine ever find its way into wool either before or after weaving to account for what is said to be present in the range of 10% of Turkmen rugs? Or is it 10% of antique Turkmen rugs? Shearing sheep is not a blood letting process. And where would the red wine come from?

Ivory (or white) is never a pure color, of course, but there would have to have been a lot of inferior (i. e., stained or naturally tinted) wool used to produce the kinds of results you seem to be showing.

So far as I know, before it is used for weaving, wool is washed in moving water, such as a stream or creek, not in vats. Accidental permanent dyeing is unlikely. Dyes are fixed in the wool by boiling the wool in the dye for rather a long time. Even if a small bit of water used to dye wool were to come into contact with undyed wool, it would be too weak to take and it would have to be boiling besides.

I don't think that bleeding reds are confined to the Turkmen. I have seen straying reds in some Qashqai rugs and bags and noticed that some of the new Azerbaijani copies of old Caucasian rugs have some bleeding reds.

Best,

Wendel

This strikes me as a useful point to remind ourselves of Steve original question: why does this phenomenon only appear in Turkmen rugs.

Clearly there are different reasons why the red might stray, but why do we not see this on non-Turkmen rugs. Many of these latter have red wefts, and were woven from wool that was shorn by careless shearers.

Oftentimes counter-factuals tell us as much as straightforward enquiry.

Regards
Stephen
/slouw@global.co.za

My estimate of the frequency with which stray reds occur is about 10% of antique Turkmen pile weavings. It's most obvious in those with rather large expanses of white or ivory - asmalyks, paneled mafrash, kapunuks. And, of course, that estimate is based on appearance in photos that have been reproduced in print media.

I am not committed to the notion that every published instance is free of artifact, so maybe the actual frequency is much lower. But some examples are clearly not artifactual, like the one in the Wiedersburg collection (that I saw with Patrick Weiler standing next to me, and we both commented on it) and Amos Bateman Thacher's.

What is the explanation? I suspect that it isn't the same for all of them, so maybe the right question is, what are the explanations? I'm reluctant to anger any of the natural-dyes-never-run people by suggesting that maybe there are circumstances under which natural dyes do run. but that thought has crossed my mind. But I suspect that sometimes it's intentional use of nonuniformly white/ivory wool by the weaver. Wendel, in the previous post, takes the position that no weaver would do such a thing intentionally with a rug intended to be impressive. But perhaps some weavers or some customers thought this was beautiful, not flawed. Amos Bateman Thacher certainly did. Here, once more, are his words on the subject: No dye ever discovered can equal its shading from old ivory to palest fawn suffused with a rosy flush.

Steve Price

One more point of clarification. I used the words "stray reds" to imply the presence of red tinges in areas where you might not expect to find them. Wendel's use of the phrase "straying reds" clearly implies color runs. That was not my intent, although I am not convinced that such a phenomenon is absolutely impossible with natural dyes.

Steve Price

-I'm a careless shearer, sometimes.

-Blood turns brown after a while. I didn't think of that.

If I'm correct, w'are talking about real "stray reds", in places you wouldn't normally expect them. Not to the edge of a red design.
Because it's a little out of the ordinary, we can only speculate, without handling the rug.
-Contamination.
Natural dyes do not run.
If so, Indigo doesn't run.
How come the total environment of the Indigo vat is blew/green including the dye master.
So contamination could be prior to dyeing.
But, is the wool that needs to be white, in an contamination distance. Why taking the risk?
Only if the white needs to be dyed, ivory, it could be in the environment. Maybe this could be the case in 10% of the production. The rest is undyed white? It's awkward, the weaver didn't take out the contaminated lot.

-North African women have Indigo clothing. There skins show a blewish tan.
The Indigo doesn't run, it rubs off.

In, pre-chemical times, natural dyed rugs, the red rubs off on the warps. The blew doesn't show this because a blewish tan makes the white warps more white.

-In, pre-chemical times, natural dyed rugs, the red wefts do rub off on the white knots. Not the piles.

Conclusion:
If the pile is red, it's contamination post production. It's a stain.

If the pile is gone and the knot is red, it's a natural rubbing off or a stain.

All "hands on the subject" authorities have to be disregarded, and the natural dyes do run, but only in very peculiar places?
I do not think, I'm blockhead enough to walk that path. Tessellation, elongation, perspective? I'm in.

Best regards,
Vincent

Will this posting be the end of a myth?
Some months ago, wanting to restore one of my rug with “Natural” dyed wool yarns not available here in Belgium I made my first experiences as a wool dyer.
I tried to dye myself Turkish ivory wool with madder red. I first used this natural dyed wool to repile a fragment without any value and washed it. Dye runs appeared !!

I first thought I had dye runs because I had used usual kitchen salt (NaCl) as mordant. I tried again using this time Alun. Well I had the same result, once more dye runs and curiously not the same shade of red. Does the type of mordant used modify the shade of the color?

After some more experiences I learned that my error was not to have enough washed the wool after the dying process, and the excess unabsorbed dye was rained afterwards.

Thanks,

Daniel

I'e never had the experience of washing a rug in hot water, but I'm not astonished to learn that there are conditions under which madder reds can run.

Steve Price