3'6" x 14'8" Persian Karaja Runner Rug | Salmon Field with Hexagonal Medallions | Excellent Condition

This 3'6" x 14'8" Persian Karaja runner is honest village work, hand-knotted knot by knot on a cotton foundation with a tough wool pile. At 176 inches long and a generous 42 inches wide, it covers the kind of long corridor that most runners fall short of, and it does it with a single continuous design rather than a repeat that has been cut to length. The condition is excellent: the pile stands full across the whole field, the selvages are tight and unbroken, and the ivory fringe at both ends is clean and even. The reverse photograph shows a firm, regular weave with the pattern reading as crisply from the back as it does from the front, which is the quickest honest test of a village rug. Every rug leaves us with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The field runs as a column of flattened hexagonal medallions, each one outlined in navy and quartered inside by a bold ivory cross, with small stepped combs stacked along the top and bottom edges. Dead center sits the showpiece: a large ivory cruciform medallion with serrated arms and a tiny dark rosette at its heart, the one element in the rug that breaks the rhythm. Between the hexagons the weaver set upright navy panels carrying angular ivory and salmon hooks, so the eye moves medallion, panel, medallion all the way down the 14'8" length. The ground between is filled edge to edge with little 4 petal rosettes, dotted blossoms and thin diagonal vines, the sort of busy, confident filler that separates genuine village drawing from workshop copies of it. A wide navy main border carries rows of stylized flowerheads and comb figures, framed by olive and camel guard stripes with a dotted inner line. If straight lines and angular medallions are what you are after, this sits squarely with the best geometric Persian rugs.

Salmon, Navy and Ivory Color Reading

The field color is the reason to buy this one. It reads as a soft salmon terracotta, a madder red that has mellowed toward brick and dusty rose rather than staying fire engine bright, and it shifts very gently in tone along the length where the weaver moved from one batch of dyed wool to the next. Against it, the medallion outlines and the main border are a deep indigo navy that goes almost black in the shadows of photo 6. The ivory is undyed wool, bright and slightly creamy, used for the crosses, the center medallion, the border flowerheads and the fringe, and it is what gives the rug its graphic snap. Olive green and camel run through the guard stripes and the small vine work, with touches of charcoal and a pale rose in the filler blossoms. It is a warm palette that sits comfortably on honey oak, walnut or wide plank pine, and it does not fight a painted wall.

Karaja: Village Weaving in Northwest Persia

Karaja is a small village in the mountains of northwest Persia, in the Azerbaijan region east of Tabriz near Ahar, and its name is attached to one of the most recognizable village formats in the whole trade: the long runner built from repeating hexagonal and cross medallions. The wool from those highland flocks is coarse and springy with a high lanolin content, which is why Karaja pile wears slowly and keeps its luster instead of going dull. Weaving here is done on village looms from memory and from older examples rather than from a full workshop cartoon, so the medallions are never mathematically identical and the borders turn the corner by eye. That is the character, not a fault. Village knotting of this kind is not about fineness, it is about structure and durability, and a well made Karaja outlives far more expensive city rugs in a high traffic spot. A 14'8" length is exactly what these weavers made best, which is why a rug like this is a natural answer for a long hallway runner.