We were asked by a client in London to repair a badly damaged Antique Persian Silk Qum rug. This has a silk hand woven pile as well as a silk warp and weft foundation – extending out to the fringes.
Unfortunately this incredibly beautiful pure silk handmade rug had suffered from the effects of water damage – causing the colours to run very badly in several different areas.
Clearly, this was going to be a very delicate procedure. We first had to hand wash the entire rug, to assess what levels of dye would lift from the damage. Once dry, we carefully began the process of teasing the excess colours from the silks. The root vegetable dyes had fixed themselves to the silks, therefore this process is a slow and delicate one, to only remove the unwanted dyes and not affect the underlying.
Several areas needed new dyes applied to the silks, this meant carefully painting new dyes onto each separate section in the corresponding colour of the rug.
We are delighted to say that the colour run restoration is almost complete. We hand wash the entire rug for one last time to allow the new colours to blend into the piece. The complete repair of the rug has taken several months as it’s a slow process to get right, however, our repair team were confident of a near perfect outcome and indeed have delivered.
The rug will be ready for delivery next week to our clients in central London and we hope they are as delighted as we are at the outcome.
Another fine Antique Persian rug rescued by the rug repair team here at The Oriental Rug Repair Company.