4' x 8' Persian Hamadan Rug | Wool | Multi-Color

A hand-knotted wool rug from Persia, measuring Width: 4' x Length: 8' and worked in the village manner of Hamadan. Three large stepped lozenges run end to end down a field so dark it reads as black in most light, and the drawing throughout is angular, knot-by-knot work rather than anything traced from a cartoon. At a glance it is raspberry red and slate blue on a near-black ground, long and narrow in proportion, with a short pile that lets every step of the outlines stay sharp. Among the 4x6 to 6x9 sizes this is one of the longer, narrower formats, and it sits well down a hall or along the side of a bed.

Design

The field carries three serrated diamond medallions stacked one above the other, each with a small hexagonal rosette at its centre and hooked, anchor-like arms reaching out to the sides. The outer two medallions are filled in red, the middle one in slate blue, so the eye steps between them as it travels down the rug. Where the lozenges meet, the dark ground is left open and filled instead with shield-shaped pendants and small boxed motifs, including a pair of tiny house-like figures either side of the lower junction. The main border is a slate blue band of angular vine with alternating tulip and fan forms, held between two narrow guard stripes of rosettes on red, and the whole rectangular frame is drawn slightly differently at each corner, as hand-drawn borders usually are.

Colour

The ground is an aubergine so deep it passes for black until the light falls across the pile, at which point a brown-green undertone shows through. Against it sit two reds: a cool raspberry in the upper and lower medallions and a warmer madder in the small rosettes and the outer guard stripes. The slate blue-grey of the middle medallion and the border is the quietest colour here and does most of the work holding the multi-colour palette together. Salmon outlines the lozenges in a single stepped line, and the smaller details bring in olive green, gold ochre and flecks of undyed ivory, each used sparingly enough to register as punctuation rather than pattern.

Making

Hand-knotted with a 3/8" wool pile on a foundation that shows a flat, even back in the photographs, with the knot rows legible and the selvedges intact. The condition is listed as perfect, and the ivory fringe at the end shown is full. Hamadan weaving comes from a large group of villages in western Persia and is known for exactly this kind of robust single-wefted construction and bold geometric drawing, which is what gives the rug its weight and its flat, firm handle. It is one of a great many hand-knotted rugs we carry, and a straightforward example of the type.