6' x 9'5" Pakistani Ferahan Rug | Wool | Beige and Light Blue

A 6' x 9'5" rectangular rug knotted in Pakistan in an antique Ferahan manner, with a wool pile and a field left largely open. Seen from above it reads as one long sweep of beige, broken by a single tan lozenge at the centre and two shaded corner panels at each end.

Design

The medallion is a scalloped lozenge, outlined in a thin brown line and filled with fine scrolling vine, small palmettes and flowerheads no bigger than a thumbnail. From its points a stem runs out to a pendant rosette at either end, and beyond that the field is plain wool with no filler at all, which is what gives the rug its quiet look in the room photograph. The four spandrels are drawn as large curved triangles carrying a leafy vine with open blossoms. Three borders frame the field: a wide main band of rosettes and lobed cartouches with small shield devices between them, and on each side of it a narrow guard stripe of zigzag banding and four-petal flowers.

Colour

The ground sits between sand and cream, and the wool takes the light unevenly so that the field shows soft horizontal banding rather than a flat tone. Against it the spandrels are a muted light blue that leans towards grey-green where the pile lies away from the camera. The drawing is done in tan and warm brown, and the only sharp note anywhere is rust, used for the outlines of the shield motifs in the border and for a handful of flower centres inside the medallion.

Making

It is hand-knotted, one of the wool-pile hand-knotted rugs made in Pakistan to older Persian drawings, and dates from the 1980s. The reverse, folded back in one of the photographs, shows an even, legible knot with the pattern reading clearly through to the back and a pale foundation. Condition is listed as new, and the pile stands full across the field with flat-lying selvedges and clean end fringes.