About Dhurrie Rugs

 

Our Dhurrie Rugs are hand-loomed by artisans in Rajasthan, India, using a traditional method that dates back centuries.   This ancient art form has been passed down from generation to generation and there are entire families of rug weavers dedicated to the art of the dhurrie rug.   Traditionally the dhurries are 100% cotton or wool, flat woven on a loom, ensuring a truly hand-crafted all-natural product.  Our designs are mostly inspired by antique dhurries and motifs. 

 

Dhurrie rugs have been made by the people of India for thousands of years.  By definition, a dhurrie (the word is sometimes spelled "dari" or "durrie") is a flat-woven rug indigenous to India and the surrounding regions -- Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Burma.  Dhurries are always weft-faced, which means that the warp, or lengthwise threads of the rug, are never visible except at the fringes. Dhurries can be coarsely or finely woven and, best of all, they are reversible.

 

Dhurries have few structural or stylistic restrictions. The rugs usually display "dovetailed joints," which means that the same warp is shared when wefts of different colors meet, resulting in an unbroken weave. But they sometimes employ the slit-tapestry technique used in kilims, which creates small gaps when different blocks of color are introduced. 

 

Stripes, geometrics, and rudimentary Islamic images, such as mosques and minarets, were traditional dhurrie motifs, largely because they were easy to create on the simple horizontal looms used to weave them. But as Britain's influence grew in 19th-century India, so did the popularity of European designs, particularly garish Victorian floral patterns.