9'10" x 13'10" Indian Chobi Rug | Wool | Black and Beige

This Chobi carpet measures 9'10" x 13'10" and was knotted by hand in India. The pile is wool at 3/8 inch, short enough that the drawing stays crisp, and the field is a solid dark ground carrying an allover pattern of vines, palmettes and feathered leaves. A wide pale border wraps the whole thing, and the rug is new and unused.

Design

There is no medallion. The field is given over to a continuous system of thin scrolling stems that branch, curl back on themselves and carry large sunflower-like palmettes at intervals, with serrated acanthus leaves, small eight-point rosettes and little shield-shaped vase motifs filling the spaces between. The close photographs show the stems drawn as single knotted lines, so the pattern reads as a drawing laid over the ground rather than a dense mosaic. The main border repeats a palmette and a pair of splayed leaves between paired spray motifs, separated from the field and from the outer edge by narrow guard stripes of small four-petalled flowers. The outermost selvedge is finished in the dark shade of the field, and the ends are plain ivory fringe.

Colour

The field is black with no variation across it, which is what makes the drawing stand out the way it does. Against that, the vines and flower heads run through gold, cream and pale straw, with rust and burnt orange in the leaf tips and a dull olive green in the leaves themselves. The border is a warm beige shading to tan, carrying the same olive and rust plus a deep madder red that appears only here and in the guard stripes. Warm brown sits between the gold and the rust in the larger palmettes, so the field reads gold and amber overall rather than sharply multicoloured.

Making

Hand-knotted in India in wool, with a 3/8 inch pile and a cotton-coloured fringe at both ends. The folded corner in the photographs shows the reverse, where the pattern comes through clearly and the border palmettes can be counted knot for knot. It is a rectangular carpet in a full room size, and the table records the condition as new and perfect.