8'2" x 10'5" Persian Bakhtiar Rug | Garden Panel Design | Ivory Field | 1980s Wool

This is a village-woven Persian Bakhtiar rug from the 1980s, worked in the garden manner that the Bakhtiar weavers are known for: the whole field divided into repeating compartments, each one filled with its own small flowering scheme. The wool pile stands full and even across all 8'2" x 10'5", the ends and sides are original, and the handle is the firm, slightly heavy feel you expect from a rug built on a cotton foundation with dense, tightly packed knots. Photographs 2 through 5 read closest to the true color in daylight. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a hand-knotted piece made in Persia, and this one is in excellent condition, ready to go straight down under furniture.

Design and Motifs

The garden plan here is drawn as a diamond lattice rather than the strict square grid, so the compartments interlock point to point and run edge to edge as a true all-over design with no central medallion. Inside each diamond sits either a large cusped rosette, a stylized boteh with a curled tip, or a sprig of 8 petal blossoms on a thin stem, and the weaver alternated the ground color of the compartments so the eye keeps moving diagonally across the field. The floral drawing inside the panels is close in spirit to Sarough work, softer and rounder than the angular village drawing you often see in this region. The wide main border carries a repeating palmette and serrated leaf, flanked by narrow guard stripes of small connected flower heads, and the 4 corners are resolved cleanly rather than cut off, which is a sign of a weaver following a proper cartoon.

A Multi Palette of Ivory, Sage Green and Terracotta

The field ground is ivory to soft cream, and against it the compartments alternate between a muted sage green, a warm terracotta that leans toward coral in the light, and a deep midnight navy that reads almost black from a distance. Inside the flowers you get a clear mid blue, a pale salmon pink, ivory outlines and small touches of olive on the stems, so the overall effect is genuinely multi-colored while still resolving to a warm, faded, antique-looking tone from across the room. The main border is the same midnight navy with terracotta palmettes and blue rosettes, which frames the lighter field and keeps the whole rug grounded. The close-up photograph shows how much of the color work happens at the level of individual petals, and the corner shot shows the ivory guard stripes and the navy selvedge that finish the edge.

Bakhtiar Weaving in the Chahar Mahal Villages

Bakhtiar rugs come from the Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari villages southwest of Isfahan, places such as Shalamzar, Saman and Chelgerd, woven by settled village weavers using wool from the flocks of the Bakhtiari tribes. That wool is the reason these rugs last: it is high in lanolin, it takes dye deeply, and it wears to a soft sheen instead of going dull. The back of this piece shows even, well packed knots and a straight cotton foundation, the mark of a weaver working on a proper loom to a drawn plan rather than from memory. At 8'2" x 10'5" it sits in the classic 8x10 Persian rug range, large enough to carry a full seating group with the front legs of the furniture on the pile, and sturdy enough for a room that gets used every day.