6'10" x 10'2" Persian Bijar Rug | Wool | Red and Navy

A hand-knotted wool rug from Persia, woven in the Bijar manner, measuring 6'10" x 10'2" and sitting in the 6x9 to 8x10 band. From across a room it reads as a solid block of red held inside a pale border. Close up the red turns out to be a fine lattice of small flowerheads and leaves, with a narrow navy medallion at the centre and a cream band of figures running all the way round. The rectangular format is close to a true seven by ten, with plain ivory fringes at both ends.

Design

The field carries an all-over Herati lattice: a diamond grid picked out in ivory and navy, each compartment holding a rosette with curved serrated leaves turned around it, repeated end to end without a break in the rhythm. At the centre sits a small elongated hexagonal medallion on navy ground, outlined in ivory, with a stepped pendant reaching up and down the length. The four corners are filled with navy spandrels carrying the same lattice in reverse, so the pattern appears to continue underneath them. The main border is cream and crowded with dark boteh and small bird-like figures linked by a thin vine, flanked by red bands of green and tan zigzags with four-petal rosettes between them, and finally a narrow navy meander guard at the outer edge.

Colour

The ground is a clear madder red, slightly pinker where the light runs along the pile and deeper where it runs against it. Against that, the medallion and spandrels are a dark indigo navy that reads almost black until the pile is turned. The border changes the key entirely: a flat cream, nearly beige, which lifts the whole rug and keeps the red from closing in. Scattered through the drawing are olive and chartreuse green, black outlines, small touches of sky blue, tan and apricot in the rosettes of the guard bands.

Making

Hand-knotted with a wool pile, as the back photograph shows, with a clear knot grid and cotton warps ending in plain fringes. The pile is close cropped and even, the sides straight, the selvedges firm. The table dates it to the 2000s and records it as unused, in perfect condition, which matches the unworn look of the pile in the rolled and folded shots.