6'8" x 9'6" Turkish Sivas Rug | Light Brown and Ivory | Rectangular

A hand-knotted rug from Turkey measuring 6'8" x 9'6", worked in a Sivas design. At a glance it reads as one pale, busy surface: a light brown and ivory ground carrying an all-over repeat of small crowned palmettes, with sage green and dark burgundy doing most of the drawing. It sits in the 6x9 to 8x10 size band, long enough for a dining table or a seating group without running to room size.

Design

The field has no medallion. Instead the pattern repeats in staggered rows across the whole surface: a palmette with a shield-shaped heart, flanked by paired leaves and small rosettes, each unit tied to the next by a fine scrolling vine that fills every gap between them. Looked at closely, as in the detail photograph, the vine is drawn in a thin brown line and the flower heads are picked out with tiny blue-green eyes. The main border carries a larger version of the same scroll on a darker ground, and is held between narrow guard stripes, one of them a dark zigzag meander that runs the full perimeter. Plain ivory kilim ends and fringe finish both ends.

Colour

The ground shifts between ivory and a wheaty light brown, lighter down the centre of the field and deepening in the border, where the brown comes close to old gold. Against that the palmettes are filled with a soft sage green and a muted rose, while the outlines and the small cross motifs are a deep burgundy near aubergine. A few dark blue-green dots appear inside the flower heads, and they are the coolest note in an otherwise warm, closely keyed palette. Nothing in it is loud; the contrast lives in the drawing rather than in the colours.

Making

Hand-knotted in Turkey, rectangular in format at 6'8" x 9'6". The reverse, shown folded back in the last photograph, is tight and even, with the palmettes and the vine legible knot by knot and the selvedge running straight along the edge. The pile is clipped low enough that the fine outlining holds its shape. Condition is noted as excellent. More hand-knotted pieces can be found across the full collection.