8' x 8' Pakistani Ziegler Square Rug | Wool | Chocolate Brown and Beige

A square rug of 8' x 8', hand-knotted in Pakistan in fine Ghazni wool with a quarter-inch pile. The field is a deep chocolate brown that leans toward plum where the light crosses it, carrying an all-over pattern of pale palmettes and flowerheads, and the whole is framed by a broad beige border. At a glance it reads as dark and quiet from across a room, and as a dense flower drawing from close up.

Design

The Ziegler drawing here is an all-over one rather than a medallion. Thin ivory vines loop across the field and carry three kinds of blossom: large shield-shaped palmettes with scalloped outlines, cross-shaped rosette clusters with four small flowerheads around a centre, and spiky sunburst flowers set between them. Serrated leaves and small curling tendrils fill the ground between the larger forms, and the repeat is offset enough that each quarter of the square reads a little differently. The main border runs a meander of large open rosettes alternating with leafy spray motifs, hung with small five-petalled flowers on fine stems, and a narrow guard stripe of repeating rosettes runs along either side of it.

Colour

The field is a brown with real depth to it, closer to bitter chocolate at the edges and to aubergine through the middle, which is what gives the pale drawing its lift. Against it the motifs sit in ivory, soft beige and a warm straw gold, with sage green doing most of the leafwork and rust picking out flower centres and the tips of the sunburst blossoms. Small touches of denim blue appear in the rosette hearts. The border is a flat beige, warmer and pinker than the ivory inside the field, so the frame separates cleanly from the ground without a hard line between them.

Making

Hand-knotted in Pakistan in fine Ghazni wool, with a pile left at a quarter of an inch so the outlines stay crisp. The back photograph shows an even, regular knotting across the full width. The rug is new and in perfect condition, with the fringes full and the selvedges intact, and it is one of the square formats among the hand-knotted rugs we carry. Being new, it has no wear, no repair and no previous life on a floor.