8'2" x 10'10" Pakistani Isfahan Rug | Fine Wool | Ivory and Red

This is a hand-knotted rug from Pakistan, measuring 8'2" x 10'10" in a rectangular format that sits in the 8x10 to 10x14 band. The pile is fine wool. At a glance it reads as a pale rug with a dark frame: an ivory field covered edge to edge in small floral work, enclosed by a wide red border, with the fringes left long and cream at both ends.

Design

The Isfahan design here is an all-over one, with no central medallion. Thin vines run the length of the field and carry rounded palmettes, eight-pointed star rosettes, small five-petal blossoms and curling acanthus leaves, the pattern mirroring across the long axis so that pairs of large palmettes face each other down the centre. The main border is a red ground with alternating fan-shaped palmettes and rosette discs linked by a leafy meander, and it is flanked on both sides by pale grey-green guard stripes carrying a smaller running vine. Two narrow outer stripes finish the edge before the plain ivory selvage.

Colour

The field is a warm ivory with a faint yellow cast, closer to old parchment than to white. Against it the drawing is worked in slate and indigo blue, a soft sage green in the leaves and guard borders, dusty rose, and a dark red that deepens in the wide border to a brick tone. Small points of gold and outlines in near-black give the flowers their edges and keep the pale ground from flattening out.

Making

The rug is hand-knotted in wool, with a fine, closely drawn pile that lets the vines stay thin and the rosettes stay round at this scale. The back, shown against a ruler in the last photograph, is even and tight, and the warps run out into long plied fringes. Condition is new. It is one of the Pakistani pieces in our full collection built on a classical Persian city design rather than a tribal one.