6' x 10'10" Caucasian Kazak Rug | Wool | Red

A 6' x 10'10" Kazak hand-knotted in wool in the Caucasus. Four octagonal medallions run the length of a plain red field, each one outlined in apple green and filled with blue, orange and yellow. The rectangular format is long for its width, and the drawing is large enough that the whole design reads from across a room.

Design

The four medallions are stepped octagons, each ringed by a sawtooth edge in green and a second outline in blue, with the two central ones carrying inner panels of cobalt blue around a cross-shaped figure in red or orange. Orange arrow heads and small tree-like forms fill the corners inside each medallion, and a row of ivory arcade motifs runs under the upper edge of the two lower ones. The open red ground between the medallions is scattered with small eight-petal rosettes in green, blue and ivory, a few star forms, and a handful of tiny blue animal figures on four legs. The main border is a light blue band holding green eight-pointed stars alternating with orange and dark red comb motifs, held between red guard stripes of yellow and ivory flower heads and a narrow chain of coloured discs. The ends finish in plain ivory fringe.

Colour

The field is a strong madder red that shifts between cherry and deeper burgundy as the pile lies one way or the other, most visible in the raking light of the close photographs. Against it the weaver set cobalt and a paler cornflower blue, an acid apple green used mostly as outline, saffron orange, chrome yellow, and a dark aubergine brown that anchors the medallion rings. Ivory appears only in thin lines and small flower heads, which is what keeps the greens and oranges from running together.

Making

Hand-knotted with a 3/8" wool pile on a Kazak design from the Caucasus, and in excellent condition, with even pile across the field and clean fringes at both ends. A date, 1970, is knotted in ivory into the upper left of the field beside the first medallion.