8'3" x 11'3" Persian Bakhtiari Garden Rug | Wool | Multi-Colour

A hand-knotted rug from Persia with a wool pile, measuring 8'3" x 11'3" in a plain rectangular format. At a glance the field reads as a grid: dozens of small compartments, each holding one plant or flower, set inside a wide brick red border of paisleys and flower heads. The panels alternate between indigo, ivory and the same dull brick ground, so the surface breaks into squares of dark and light before any single motif becomes legible.

Design

The field follows the garden layout associated with Bakhtiari weaving: six columns of compartments running the length of the rug, divided by narrow bands of linked cartouches with a small rosette at every crossing. No two neighbouring panels repeat. Some hold a cypress or a willow with branches drooping to either side, some a flowering shrub rising from a small foot, some a close row of upright leaf sprigs stitched in fine diagonal lines, and one panel near the centre carries a single eight-point star rosette on cream. The main border is drawn at a much larger scale, with broad hooked boteh alternating with open flower heads and a palmette flanked by curling leaves, and a pair of ivory guard stripes of meandering vine holds it on both sides. Pale fringe finishes both ends.

Colour

The dominant note is a dull brick red, closer to terracotta where the light crosses the pile and deeper at the border corners. Against it sit panels of dark indigo and panels of undyed ivory, which is what gives the field its checkerboard rhythm. Within the compartments the drawing works in soft rose pink, mustard gold, olive and bottle green, with outlines in a brown so dark it passes for black. The overall effect is multi-colour without being bright: the greens and golds are muted enough that the red and indigo carry the rug.

Weave and materials

Hand-knotted in Persia with a wool pile, one of the hand-knotted pieces where the detail in the small panels, the thin diagonal leaf rows in particular, tells you how tightly the drawing has been set. The back photograph shows the knots clearly through the fringe end, with the border pattern legible from the reverse. Condition is listed as perfect, and the pile in the close photographs stands evenly with no thinning visible across the field or at the edges.