12' x 17'5" Pakistani Ziegler Rug | Wool | Blue-Grey and Ivory

This is a 12' x 17'5" carpet, hand-knotted in wool in Pakistan, with a pile clipped to 5/16". Seen flat, it reads as two colours: a soft grey-blue field carrying pale gold and cream flowerheads, and a broad ivory and beige border that takes up nearly a third of the width of the rug. It is rectangular and new, with no wear to report.

Design

The Ziegler drawing is an all-over one, a slow lattice of vine that runs the length of the field without a medallion to stop it. Large rosettes and split palmettes sit at the centre of each repeat, linked by curling acanthus leaves and small four-petal blossoms; the scale is generous, so that from standing height the field looks more like open ground with flowers on it than a dense pattern. The main border carries a single file of cusped palmettes and leafy scrolls facing alternately in and out, held between narrow guard stripes of small stars and stems. At the outer edge runs a plain blue-grey stripe that picks the field colour back up and closes the composition, visible clearly in the corner photograph.

Colour

The field is a light grey-blue, closer to slate than to sky, and the close-up shows it woven from strands of slightly different depth so the ground moves rather than sitting flat. Against it the ornament is drawn in wheat gold, honey and undyed cream, with a few leaves tipped in soft rust and a thin brick outline on one or two palmettes. The border is a pale sand ivory, warmer than the cream in the field, and the scrollwork on it is worked in olive gold with occasional touches of the same blue-grey, which ties the two halves of the rug together. Nothing in the palette is loud; the strongest contrast on the whole carpet is between the blue ground and the ivory border that surrounds it.

Making

The rug is hand-knotted in Pakistan, where Ziegler-design carpets are woven in wool on a cotton foundation, and the reverse photograph shows the knotting and the flat woven end finish beside a twelve-inch rule. The pile stands at 5/16", short enough to keep the drawing crisp across a field this wide. It is new, unwalked, and at 12' x 17'5" it is one of the larger pieces among our hand-knotted rugs, cut for a room where the furniture sits well inside the border.