7'10" x 10'3" Indian Chobi Rug | Wool | Black and Gold

A hand-knotted wool rug from India, measuring 7'10" x 10'3". The field is black, dark enough that from across a room the flowers appear to float on it, and it is enclosed by a wide gold border that takes up almost a third of the surface. At a glance the rug divides into two plain blocks of colour, dark inside and light outside, with the detail only resolving as you come closer.

Design

The field carries an all-over Chobi pattern: thin stems curving out from a central axis, carrying large serrated palmettes, open rosettes with ringed centres, cypress-like leaf forms and small curled buds. The drawing is mirrored left to right and top to bottom, so the eye keeps finding the same palmette twice, but the individual flowers are not identical, and the scale shifts a little between the centre and the ends. The main border holds a single repeating element, a tall fan-shaped flower spray flanked by curling vine, set between two narrow guard stripes of small rosettes and paired leaves. The rectangular format is unbroken by any medallion, and this is one of the more straightforward rectangular rugs of its type to place, since the pattern reads the same from either long side.

Colour

The ground is a very dark brown-black, closer to bitter chocolate than to true ink where the light crosses the pile, which puts the rug among our black and grey rugs. Against it the flowers are drawn in straw gold, soft ivory, olive and pale sage green, with small marks of brick red at the heart of the rosettes and along the serrated edges of the palmettes. The border is a warm wheat gold, lighter than anything in the field, so the contrast at the inner guard stripe is abrupt. The outermost edge returns to the dark brown of the field and the fringe is undyed ivory.

Making

Hand-knotted in India in wool, with a 3/8" pile. The back, shown here against a ruler, is even and legible, each knot distinct and the border drawing as clear from behind as from the front. Condition is excellent, with full pile throughout and intact selvedges. Chobi is a design name rather than a place, and this one was knotted in India, not Persia or Afghanistan. It sits with our other wool rugs and the wider range of hand-knotted rugs we carry.