2'7" x 13' Persian Runner | Navy Blue and Multicolour

A hand-knotted runner from Persia, measuring Width: 2'7" x Length: 13". The field is navy, almost black where the pile lies away from the light, and it is covered end to end with a floral vine drawn in cream, gold, rust and soft blue. A broad ivory border runs the length of both sides. At a glance it reads as a dark, finely drawn carpet with a pale frame, narrow enough for a corridor and long enough to carry one without a break. The pile is clipped low, which is why the small flowerheads stay legible in the photographs. Condition is excellent. It sits among the hand-knotted rugs we keep in long lengths.

Design

The field is an all-over floral repeat rather than a medallion layout: a pale ochre vine loops up the runner, throwing off serrated split leaves, open palmettes and small rosettes at regular intervals. Every second or third unit carries a larger curled leaf outlined in rust, and between them sit eight-petalled rosettes drawn in ivory and light blue. The repeat mirrors across the width, so the two halves answer each other down the centre line. The main border holds a turning vine of palmettes and cypress-like sprays on ivory, set between narrow guard stripes of slate blue carrying a small meander, and a third fine navy stripe closes the edge.

Colour

The ground is a deep navy blue, cool and even, with no abrash visible across the length. Against it the drawing runs multicoloured: cream and pale straw for the vine, warm camel and old gold in the palmettes, brick rust in the leaf tips and small flowers, and a dusty sage green in the foliage. A mid blue, lighter than the ground, picks out leaf halves and rosette centres so the pattern does not flatten into the field. The ivory border is the warm side of white, closer to parchment, and it lifts the dark field cleanly at both edges.

Making

Hand-knotted in Persia, with the pile cut short enough that the outlines stay sharp and the knot nodes are readable on the reverse, as the last photograph shows. The fringes are plain and undyed at both ends, and the selvedges are intact along both long sides. The table records the condition as excellent, and the photographs bear that out: no thin areas, no repair, the border corners square and the pile standing evenly from end to end.