8'8" x 10'10" Pakistani Ziegler Rug | Wool | Honey and Green

A rectangular room rug measuring 8'8" x 10'10", knotted by hand in Pakistan with a natural wool pile. The field reads as honey at a distance, warming towards apricot down the centre where the light crosses the pile, and it carries an all-over floral pattern rather than a medallion. At this size the pattern repeats four times across the width, so the rug sits well under a seating group without a centre motif disappearing beneath a table.

Design

The Ziegler drawing here is an open lattice of palmettes and rosettes joined by thin vine work, the sort of spacious all-over layout associated with the nineteenth century Sultanabad workshops and still drawn in Pakistani looms today. Large split palmettes alternate with cruciform flower heads and small serrated leaves, each outlined in a darker line that holds the shape against the pale ground. The main border runs a chain of eight-petal rosettes and quatrefoils between a meandering stem, flanked by narrow guard stripes of small blossoms; the corners are resolved rather than cut, and the border ground is lighter than the field, which gives the rug a distinct frame in the room photograph.

Colour

The ground is honey, running to apricot and soft terracotta in places where the wool took the dye unevenly, a striation visible in the close-up shots as fine vertical bands. Against it the outlines are a strong olive green, the deepest colour in the rug and the one that carries the pattern at a glance. Palmette centres are filled with a dusty brown that tips towards mauve, with ivory and pale gold reserved for the smaller flower heads and the border ground. Nothing in the palette is loud; the contrast is between warm and cool rather than light and dark.

Making

This is a new rug in perfect condition, hand-knotted on a Pakistani loom with a pile of natural wool. The reverse, shown folded in one of the photographs, carries the pattern clearly through to the back, which is what a hand-knotted structure gives you and a machine-made rug does not. The pile is cut at a moderate height, with a plain fringe finishing both ends. Being new, it has no wear, no repairs and no restoration to account for.