The Red Carpet Treatment

QUESTION: My great grandmother left me a beautiful Oriental carpet runner. My grandmother said it is quite old, but I’m not sure by how much.  What can you tell me about antique Oriental carpets? I have no idea about its origins, pattern, and such.

ANSWER: What most people classify as Oriental carpets are actually Persian (now Iranian) or Turkish carpets. Originally made to cover the sand in the tents of nomads and to kneel on when saying daily prayers, these beautiful floor coverings have a long history.

Oriental carpets have been highly prized in the West since their first appearance in Venice in the 13th century. By the 18th century they were common in wealthier households. But relative demand was fairly small, so the production of carpets declined. During the 19th century, trade routes improved, contact with the Orient increased, and the Western obsession with the exotic grew. So Persian weavers produced great quantities of carpets for export.

Carpet-weaving is an integral part of Iranian culture and art and dates back to ancient Persia. Weavers from other countries copied the designs of Persian carpets, but Persia produced 75 percent of the world's woven carpets.

Generally, Persian carpets can be divided into three groups—Farsh/Qa-li, any carpet greater than 6×4 feet, Qa-licheh, sized 6×4 feet and smaller), and nomadic carpets known as Gelim including Zilu, meaning "rough carpet," mostly for use in tents.

Wool is the most common material for carpets but cotton is frequently used for the foundation of city and workshop carpets. There are a wide variety in types of wool used for weaving Oriental carpets, including . Kork wool, Manchester wool, and in some cases even camel hair wool.

Persian rugs have both a layout and a design which in general include one or more motifs, so it’s not unusual to find more than one motif in a single rug. The original designs act as the main pattern and the derivatives as the sub patterns. Rug experts have identified 19 pattern groups---historic monuments and Islamic buildings, Shah Abbassi patterns, spiral patterns, all-over patterns, derivative patterns, interconnected patterns, paisley patterns, tree patterns, Turkoman patterns, hunting ground patterns, panel patterns, European flower patterns, vase patterns, intertwined fish patterns, Mehrab patterns, striped patterns, geometric patterns, tribal patterns, and composites. The most common motifs include Boteh, Gul, Herati, Mina-Khani, Rosette, Shah Abbasi, Azari Kharchang, and Islimi Floral.

Persian rugs are typically laid out using one of four patterns—all-over, central medallion, compartment and one-sided. So a rug’s design can be described in terms of the manner in which it organizes the field of the rug. One basic design may serve the entire field, or the surface may be covered by a pattern of repeating figures. In areas using long-established local designs. the weaver often works from memory, with the patterns passed on within the family.

Weavers often tailored the dimensions of their carpets to suit Western needs. They produced a disproportionate number of runners—long narrow rugs originally designed to cover the sides of rooms or tents since these had special appeal to Westerners. Even so, the standards remained the same. The major carpet-weaving centers—Persia, Turkey and the Caucasus—continued to use traditional motifs and techniques, maintaining the carpets’ regional integrity and originality.

While carpets made before 1800 are extremely expensive, the antique carpet market offers some excellent buys for the beginning collector. High quality runners generally cost between $1,500 and $15,000, depending on overall design, pliability, date, and type and number of knots.

Edgar Allan Poe once said, “A judge at common law may be an ordinary man; a good judge of carpets must be a genius.” And as hard as they are to judge, they’re certainly easy to enjoy.

Rocking Into Butter

QUESTION: I recently purchased an odd sort of butter churn at a local antique show. It’s a horizontal container suspended by straps to a truncated wooden frame. The only type of butter churn I’ve heard of is the vertical cylindrical type. It has the name and location of the company that made it—"Davis Swing Churn, No. 2, Vermont Farm Machine Co., Bellows Falls, Vt."—painted on both sides. Can you tell me something about it?

ANSWER: What you have is what’s commonly called a “rocking churn.” It seems women used to hook the churn to a rocker using a hook and a length of rope and as they rocked, they pulled the churn from side to side, agitating the cream inside.

To better understand how this type of churn works, it’s important to know how the churning process works. Women used a variety of churns to turn cream into butter. The most common type of churn is the vertical churn into which a person inserted a pole inserted through the lid.

The agitation of the cream, caused by the mechanical motion of the device, disrupts the milk fat. This movement breaks down the membranes that surround the fats in the cream, forming clumps known as butter grains. These butter grains, during the process of churning, fuse with each other and form larger fat globules. The mechanical action introduces air bubbles into these fat globules. The butter grains become more dense as fat globules attach to them while action forces the air out of the mixture. This process creates buttermilk. With constant churning, the fat globules eventually form solid butter and separate from the buttermilk. The butter maker then drains off the buttermilk and squeezes the butter to eliminate excess liquid, forming it into a solid mass.

Historians believe the word “butter” came from the Greek word boutyron, meaning “cow cheese.” That’s because goat’s milk doesn’t work well to produce butter because of its lower fat content.  Evidence for the use of butter dates back as early as 2000 B.C.E.. And the butter churn, itself, may have existed as early as the 6th century A.D. Historians also believe that early nomads may have discovered butter by accident after having filled skin bags with milk and loading them onto pack animals. The movement of the animals shook the bags, creating butter.

Before commercial dairies began producing butter, every home had tools to make its own. Butter churns came in a variety of styles. The most common is a container, made of stoneware in the mid-19th century and later of wood, where the person making the butter creates it by moving a pole, inserted into the lid, in a vertical motion. This type of churn is also known as an “up-and-down”’ churn, plunger churn, plumping churn, or knocker churn.  The staff used in the churn is called a dash, dasher-staff, churn-staff, churning-stick, or plunger.

Another common type of butter churn is the paddle churn. The butter maker turned a handle that operated a paddle inside a container, causing the cream to become butter. Yet another type is the barrel churn. This consists of a barrel turned onto its side with a crank attached. The crank either turns a paddle device inside the churn, as in the paddle churn, or turns the whole barrel, whose action converts the milk to butter.

Finally, there the rocking chair butter churn, invented by Alfred Clark. This device, invented by Alfred Clark, consisted of a barrel attached to a rocking chair. While the rocking chair moved, the barrel moved and churned the milk within into butter. Today, a rocking butter churn in good condition sells for over $500.