3' x 19' Persian Herati Runner | Wool | Red and Ivory

A runner of 3' x 19', hand-knotted in Persia with a wool pile. The field is a raspberry red carrying rows of small cone-shaped motifs in ivory and tan, and the whole length is framed by a pale ivory border with a dark serpentine vine running through it. At a distance the field reads as close ranked texture rather than as separate figures, which is part of why a rug this long holds together down a corridor.

Design

The Herati drawing here takes the form of a staggered all-over repeat: rows of upright cones, each one filled with a dense lattice of tiny hooked flowerheads, each sitting on a small foot of green and gold. The rows are offset so the cones nest into one another, and the outlines are drawn in ivory against the red so that the negative space between them forms its own diagonal grid. The main border is ivory, with a large undulating vine and leaf-shaped cartouches worked in green and navy, and it is held between narrow sawtooth guards of green and white with a thin gold line against the field. The end border, visible in the second and third photographs, turns the vine into a broader meander across the width.

Colour

The ground is a cool red that sits closer to raspberry than to brick, and it shifts in places towards crimson where the light crosses the pile. Against it the cone motifs are ivory, oatmeal and a dusty rose, so the contrast is quiet rather than sharp. Green appears twice and deliberately: as dark tufts at the base of each cone in the field, and as the leaf forms in the border, where it is backed by navy blue outlining and a mustard gold edge. One end of the field, shown in the sixth and seventh images, carries a lighter band where the red runs paler.

Making

Hand-knotted in Persia, with a wool pile on a cotton-coloured foundation that can be seen in the back view, where the rows of knots show the full colour list of the front in small flecks of red, green, navy and gold. The table dates it to the 1980s and records the condition as perfect. The ends are finished with plain white fringe and the sides are overcast in red.