4'6" x 11' Persian Hamadan Rug | Wool | Multi-Color

A long, narrow rectangular rug measuring 4'6" x 11', hand-knotted in Persia with a 3/8" wool pile. The field is an undyed-looking camel brown that shifts toward olive in the photographs, and down the centre of it runs a single file of large serrated diamonds, each one a different colour from the one above it. The borders are the opposite in temperament: five of them, tight and busy, stacked in red, crimson and cream.

Design

The Hamadan drawing here is as direct as village weaving gets. A thin dark line runs the length of the field like a stem, and the diamonds sit on it in pairs and singles, each outlined in a zigzag of sawtooth steps and centred on a plain cross or bar. Small cypress sprigs, eight-pointed stars and the odd stray rosette fill the brown ground between them, placed by eye rather than by plan, and in one corner (image four) a little bird in grey and orange stands on its own with nothing around it. The guard stripes are pearl-and-dot chains; the inner border carries star flowers scattered on crimson, the wide cream band holds linked hooked cartouches, and the outer red band repeats a chain of interlocking latch-hooks in orange, navy and ivory.

Colour

The multi-colour field works because the ground is quiet: camel brown with an olive cast, warm enough to carry anything. Against it the medallions run through deep indigo, oxblood and aubergine, scarlet, a clear saffron yellow, undyed ivory, and in two places a chalky sage green that reads almost grey. The borders bring in a strong pinkish red and a cream that has gone slightly honey-toned, so the frame is hot and the centre is earthy. Nothing is blended; each colour is a flat block with a dark outline around it.

Making

Hand-knotted in wool on a 3/8" pile, with the single-wefted, slightly stiff handle that the Hamadan district produces, and recorded in excellent condition. The back (image ten) shows even, clearly legible knotting and a flat, firm weave, with the ivory warp fringe left plain at the ends. It is catalogued among the rugs in our inventory under the Hamadan design, origin Persia.