5'8" x 9' Pakistani Chobi Rug | Wool | Black and Ivory

A 5'8" x 9' rug hand-knotted in Pakistan with a pile of natural wool, worked in the Chobi manner the spec table records as Zigler. At a glance it reads in two parts: a near-black field covered edge to edge with large pale palmettes on a thin vine, and a wide golden ivory border holding it. The proportions are those of a long rectangle, roughly half again as long as it is wide, and the ends finish in plain white cotton fringe.

The design

The field has no medallion. Instead a system of slender vines runs the length of the rug, branching into paired leaf hooks and carrying serrated palmettes that alternate in size and orientation: large shield-shaped ones on the centre axis, rounder rosette forms set off to the sides, and small eight-petalled flowerheads filling the gaps between. The pattern mirrors left to right and repeats up the length without quite repeating exactly, so corresponding motifs differ in their interior detail. The main border carries a procession of palmettes and angular leaf sprays on ivory, with a narrow guard stripe of small flowerheads on either side; at the corners the design turns cleanly and the drawing continues around rather than stopping short.

The colour

The ground is a deep black that lightens in places to a charcoal brown where the handspun yarn takes the dye unevenly, visible in the raking-light photographs as faint horizontal banding. Against it the palmettes are drawn in a warm ivory that runs to pale gold, shaded with olive green at the leaf tips and with rust and a soft rose at the centres. The border picks up the same ivory as its ground, so the field's motifs and the border read as one family of colours with the black doing all the separating.

The making

Hand-knotted on a cotton foundation, pile of natural wool, the back showing a regular knot grid with the design legible through it and fringe left plain at both ends. The table records the rug as new and in perfect condition, and the photographs bear that out: full pile throughout, no wear at the ends, selvedges intact.