8' x 12' Persian Qom Rug | Red, Navy and Green | Large

A hand-knotted rug from Persia in the Qom design, measuring Width: 8' x Length: 12' and sitting comfortably in the large range for a dining room or a main sitting room. Seen flat, it reads as a brick red field carrying rows of dark navy panels, each one packed with flowers, and the whole thing is framed by a red main border and several narrow light blue guard stripes. The ends finish in plain ivory fringe and the sides in a dark navy selvage.

Design

The field has no single medallion. Instead it repeats a staggered lattice of navy cartouches, lobed and scalloped at the edges, each holding a spray of palmettes, serrated leaves and small rosettes drawn with fine outlines in ivory. Between the navy shapes the red ground is filled with its own vinework and smaller blossoms, so the two colours interlock rather than sit one on top of the other. The main border runs a continuous meander of large rosettes and split leaves on red, and on either side of it a pale blue band carries a chain of small cloud-band and flowerhead motifs. The pattern is mirrored across the long axis and drawn with the same weight of line in every panel, which is easiest to see in the close photographs of the centre. The rectangular shape is straight and true along both sides.

Colour

The ground is a warm brick red, closer to terracotta in overhead light and deeper where the pile lies against the camera. The panels are an inky navy that reads almost black at a distance, and the guard borders lift the whole scheme with a much lighter sky blue. Inside the flowers there is a soft sage and moss green, ivory, pale salmon pink and small points of gold. The light blue stripes do most of the work here: without them the red and navy would meet directly, and the effect would be much heavier.

Making

The rug is hand-knotted, with the pattern drawn finely enough for the small flowerheads and outlines to hold their shape, and the back shown alongside a tape measure in the last photograph gives a fair idea of the knot count. The table records the age as recent, so this is one of the newly woven pieces among the hand-knotted rugs we carry, and its condition is given as perfect, with full pile, clean fringes and leather binding at one end.