8' x 13'3" Kazak Oriental Rug | Navy Blue All Over Floral Lattice | Ghazni Silky Wool, Never Used

This 8' x 13'3" Kazak is brand new and has never been walked on, knotted entirely by hand in Ghazni silky wool, the long-staple highland fleece that gives the pile its quiet sheen when the light crosses it. The format is generous without being unwieldy: 8 feet wide by 13'3" long holds a full sofa-and-chairs group with the front legs on, or a 8 to 10 seat dining table with chairs pulled back, which puts it squarely in the large hand-knotted rugs bracket. As a hand-knotted Oriental rug it ships with a certificate of authenticity listing the weave, the wool and the measurements shown on the tag in the final photograph.

Design and Motifs

The field is an all over lattice rather than a medallion layout: hooked vines link into diamond compartments, each one anchored by a shield palmette or a stepped hexagon cartouche, with serrated leaves, 8 petal rosettes and small tulip sprays filling the ground between them. Four large shield palmettes run up the center line, so the eye reads a spine even though there is no central medallion, and the lattice is drawn with the straight lines and squared-off hooks that mark true geometric rug designs rather than a curvilinear workshop drawing. The frame is built in 5 bands: a reciprocal trefoil guard, a thin striped guard, the wide main border of alternating red rosette medallions and navy octagonal cartouches, then an outer red band of linked vine and crosses. Corners are resolved cleanly, which on a rug of this length is a test of the weaver's accounting rather than luck.

A Deep Blue Field Framed in Apricot Beige and Red

Blue is the governing color and it is not flat: the ground moves between a slate-leaning indigo in the shaded photographs and a clearer mid denim where the pile catches light, the natural variation of hand-dyed and hand-spun wool, so this reads as a genuine navy and blue rug rather than a printed one. Against it the lattice is drawn in a warm apricot beige that runs from pale sand to soft salmon, and the same tone fills the wide main border, which is where the silky wool shows its luster most plainly. Deep madder red carries the cartouches, the rosettes and the outer band, with brick and tomato shades sitting side by side. The quieter notes do the work of making it feel old: muted sage and sea green in the small flowerheads, saffron gold in the tulip stems and palmette centers, pale ivory in the guard stripes, and flecks of light sky blue. Grey-brown fringe and a dark brown selvage close the ends.

Woven in Pakistan in Ghazni Silky Wool

Kazak is a design tradition out of the Caucasus, and it is now woven at its best by the weaving families of Pakistan, who revived the old angular drawing and paired it with Ghazni wool carried down from the Afghan highlands. That fleece is the reason this rug feels the way it does: long-stapled, lanolin heavy, soft to the hand but springy underfoot, and it takes dye with the slight unevenness that gives the field its depth. The weave is a single-weft hand-knotted structure on a cotton foundation, tight enough that the pattern reads clearly from the back, as the reverse photograph shows, and the pile is clipped medium so the motifs stay crisp. Nothing about the construction is cut short for speed, which is why a new rug of this size handles like a piece meant to sit in one room for 30 years and still look like itself.