Agra Durrie is a traditional hand woven textile product from Uttar Pradesh. It is a flat woven pileless rug having a rich variety of designs and colours. It is essentially a thick cotton woven fabric meant for spreading on the floor.
Agra Durrie is a weft-faced fabric on both its sides as warp is completely covered by the weft. In its simplest form it is made in plain weave and in simple stripes in different colours running from side to side or broken into rectilinear sections or with simple patterns in single colour or multi colours.
Durrie being woven in and around Agra can be classified in three types as follows:
Durries of Cotton / jute / Hemp :
- This kind of Durries are made of Cotton / jute / Hemp
- These are woven into different sizes and needs such as large durries for decoration of large halls, lobbies, stair cases
- Durries for saddle cloth or animal cover, large grain carrying bags, bed durries, jainamaz (prayer mat) with single or multi niche.
Woollen Durrie:
- Woollen durries are in which warp is cotton yarn and weft is woollen yarn.
- Wollen durries are stripped or having repeated geometric motifs, framed by simple borders as well as pictorial designs with a woven narrative including images of flowers, birds, reptiles and people are woven.
- These Durries are used in Big Tents, Halls, Darbar Halls, Marriage pavilions, smaller room durries, bed durries, jainamaz (prayer mat) with single or multi niche.
Chindi Durrie:
- The Chindi Durrie or rag rug in which waste cloth (chindis) are formed into a weft strand and used in weft determines in weight of rag-rug.
- It was originally made from scraps of old apparel, the wrap being the stout cotton thread, but the scraps have now changed and now they come in bulk, right out of the garment manufacturing units that is why the chindi durrie appears in all colours of the rainbow.
- An innovation on the same theme is leather scrap durrie. With thriving leather industry at Agra, Kanpur and other places, leather scrap is no problem and this being fashioned into elegant and unusual rugs.
Agra is known for natural vegetable dyes. In the past, many colours were used in a durrie which were produced with natural dyes. Madder, which grows almost everywhere, was the most important colourant of vegetable origin. Its root provided the whole range of pinks and reds.
Apart from Madder other wild vegetables, was the most important element of dying process. Other natural elements used to make dyes are turmeric root (light yellow), pomegranate skins (darker yellow), rhubarb (dark red and copper red), grass or kusa (green) and kikar tree leaves (brown).
These natural dyes were usually prepared in the weavers' own home. However presently most of the weavers prefer to use mainly two or three colours and the dyes used are synthetic direct dyes.
The origin of the Agra Durrie traced back in epics ‘Mahabharat’. It was believed that the people of Agra adorned floor covering in order to welcome lord Krishna at ‘Shauripur’ near Agra during the ancient period.
Abul Faizal, the great writer during the time of Akbar has described about the floor covering industry of Agra in his magnamapous ‘Ain-e-Akbari’. The book has explained about the existence of carpet factory in Agra fort during the period. In other words from the epic times to date, the industry is very old and traditional in the world carpet and other floor covering industry.
Agra Durrie making is a hereditary occupation and passed on generation to generation. When the generational legacy interacted with the innovativeness of each and every generation associated with the product, it gives rise to the development of new designs and attractive products.
GI Tag Registration Date : 30 March 2013
GI Tag Number : 233
Certificate Number : 190
Geographical Area : Uttar Pradesh
Special Cover Release Date : 13 October 2021
Cancellation : Fatehpur Sikri 283 110
Type : GI Tag Cover
Cover Identification Number : UP/106/2021
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