7' x 7' Persian Bakhtiari Rug | Wool | Square

A true square at 7' x 7', hand-knotted in Persia with a wool pile and a Bakhtiari drawing. The field is a salmon-toned red carrying a dense all-over floral pattern, with four cream-ground medallions set into the corners of the field and a light blue medallion at the centre. A wide light blue border runs round all four sides, and the ends finish in plain white cotton fringe.

Design

The field is covered edge to edge in small flowering sprays and leaf forms, each one drawn with a dark outline so the pattern stays legible against the ground. Four eight-pointed star medallions on cream grounds sit in the quadrants, each with a red and blue rosette at its heart, and between them a blue cruciform medallion marks the centre. Half-medallions in blue break into the field at the middle of each side, and cream spandrels fill the four corners, which makes the whole composition read the same way from every direction, as a square field should. The main border is a procession of flowering plants and rosettes on blue, closed by narrow dark guard stripes patterned with small blossoms and a red outer edge.

Colour

The ground is a red that photographs closer to salmon or soft brick, lighter than the deep madder of the outer edge. Against it the border blue is clear and mid-toned, almost sky in the open areas, with darker navy picking out stems and outlines. Cream grounds in the medallions and corner spandrels give the eye somewhere to rest, and burgundy, black and beige appear in small quantities through the flowerheads and the guard stripes. Olive green turns up in the leaves, a quiet third colour between the red and the blue.

Making

Hand-knotted in Persia with a wool pile, cut short enough that the small floral drawing holds its shape. The back shows the knots clearly along the border, where the blue ground and its flowering plants come through almost as sharply as on the face. The table dates it to the 1990s, which places it among the semi-antique stock, and the condition is given as excellent. A vertical fold line from storage is visible in the centre photograph.