4'6" x 8'3" Persian Botteh Rug | Wool | Ivory and Burgundy

A 4'6" x 8'3" hand-knotted rug with a wool pile, knotted in Persia, its long rectangular field filled corner to corner with small botteh figures on an ivory ground. From a few feet away the field reads as a soft, slightly dusty mix of pink, blue and green with no medallion to anchor the eye. Up close it resolves into rows of paisley teardrops, each one drawn separately, sitting in a bed of tiny flowers.

Design

The botteh run in staggered columns up the length of the rug, their hooked tips all leaning the same way. Each figure is outlined in salmon or brown, filled with a stem of blossom, and given a small flower head at the base. Between them the ground is packed with miniature floral sprays so densely that almost no plain ivory is left showing. The main border repeats the same idea at three or four times the scale: large open botteh spaced along a pale ivory band, separated by red and blue flowering stems, with narrow guard stripes of small blossom and single lines of burgundy and blue on either side. The corners are resolved cleanly, the border drawing turning without breaking its rhythm.

Colour

The ground is an ivory that warms towards cream where the pile has been walked. Over it sits a burgundy that shades towards raspberry in the close-up photographs, with blossoms in pale sky blue and deeper indigo scattered evenly through the field so that the whole surface reads cool as often as it reads warm. The greens run from a bright leaf tone in the small leaves to a darker olive in the stems, and there are dots of saffron gold and a pale salmon in the botteh outlines that lift the paler passages. No single colour dominates; the effect is of many small notes held together by the ivory beneath them.

Making

Hand-knotted with a wool pile, cropped short enough that the drawing of each botteh stays legible, as the folded corner and rolled edge show. The table dates it to the 1960s and records the condition as excellent to perfect, which matches the photographs: even pile across the field, intact selvedges and full fringes at both ends. The reverse, shown with the dealer's tag and tape, is crisp and regular, the pattern reading clearly through to the back.