6'6" x 8" Pakistani French Aubusson Rug | Ghazni Wool | Burgundy and Gold

A 6'6" x 8' carpet knotted in Pakistan in natural Ghazni wool, nearly square in proportion and rectangular in format. At a glance it reads as a dark red field holding a single pale cartouche medallion, framed by a wide gold border that is almost as broad as the field is deep on the short sides.

Design

The drawing follows a French Aubusson design, and it is laid out as a panel rather than as a repeat. The medallion is a lobed cartouche in pale gold, filled with a lattice of small eight-point flowerheads and curling hooks, outlined in dark red and edged with a dentil band and a collar of green leaves. Above and below it, pendant sprays of acanthus and a single drooping flower run out into the open burgundy. The four corners carry wreathed roundels, each ring of green leaves enclosing a scatter of tiny squared flowerheads and rosettes, and these roundels sit half in the field and half in the border, which gives the whole panel its architectural look. Between them the main border runs a flowering vine with five-petal rosettes, leaf cups and small palmettes, held by narrow dark red guard stripes.

Colour

The ground is a burgundy that bands lightly across the width, carrying towards wine in some passes and towards brick in others where the light crosses the pile. Against it the border is a warm gold that deepens to brown and rust in the corners, and the medallion and roundels are a pale gold close to ivory. The drawing is picked out in two tones: dark burgundy for the flowerheads and outlines, and a soft grass green for the leaves and wreaths, with occasional grey-green and a few flecks of pink in the border flowers. Red, gold and green carry the whole rug, and no colour is used flat.

Making

Hand-knotted in wool, with a pile of natural Ghazni wool that takes the light unevenly and shows the hand-spun yarn in the broad red ground. The back, seen along the fold, is even and firm, with the ends finished in a short fringe. The rug is new and in perfect condition, with full pile throughout, and it sits among the hand-knotted rugs made in Pakistan to European cartoons.