4' x 5'7" Persian Qashkooli Rug | Wool | Ivory and Rust

A hand-knotted rug measuring 4' x 5'7", woven in Persia with a wool pile. Three rust-coloured diamond medallions run down the centre of a pale ivory field, and the space around them is filled with animals: horses, elephants, spotted cats, deer, laden camels and small human figures with their arms raised. The condition is given as perfect, and the pile in the close photographs stands clean and even.

Design

The Qashkooli drawing is a tribal one, stepped rather than curved, with every outline squared off to the knot. The three medallions are set one above the other on the long axis, each a flattened diamond with a rust centre carrying tiny quadruped and bird figures, ringed by an ivory band of rosettes and then a serrated edge, the middle medallion picked out in mid blue where the outer two use navy. Around them the field is loosely scattered rather than ordered: a red boar, a standing horse, a grey elephant with its trunk curled, a striped cat stretched out full length, camels with green saddle packs, leaping deer and flowering sprigs between them. The main border of this rectangular piece is a lattice of eight-pointed stars in gold and red against navy, flanked by narrow guard stripes of sawtooth triangles.

Colour

The ground is an undyed ivory that reads closer to cream in the raking light of the detail shots. Against it the medallions are a soft rust, near terracotta, and the animals divide between a deep madder red, a warm camel gold and a clear mid blue. Small leaves and saddle cloths carry a pale green that appears nowhere else and keeps the field from settling into one temperature. Navy does the outlining and anchors the border, while the elephants are woven in a greyed mauve that sits quietly among the stronger dyes.

Making

Hand-knotted in Persia, with a wool pile on a fringed foundation, the ends finished plain and the sides bound. The reverse, shown folded back in one photograph, holds the drawing clearly enough that the animals can be read from the back. The table dates the rug to the 2000s and records its condition as perfect.