9'5" x 12'3" Persian Kerman Rug | Wool | Blush and Sage

A hand-knotted wool carpet from Persia, 9'5" x 12'3" and rectangular, with a quarter-inch pile that has worn down to something close to a flat surface. At a distance it reads almost as a plain blush ground with a pale floral medallion floating in the middle of it, and only when you stand over it does the full drawing come up out of the wool.

Design

The Kerman layout is the familiar one: a lobed central medallion built from a rosette and rings of small flowers, with a slender pendant at each end, and matching quarter-medallions filling the four corners. Between them the field is left largely open, broken only by scattered flowering sprays and small winged palmettes set at intervals, so the weight of the pattern sits at the centre and the edges. The main border carries a procession of large boteh alternating with flower heads on a darker ground, framed by narrow floral guard stripes, and it is the most strongly drawn part of the rug by some margin.

Colour

The field is blush shading into peach where the dye ran warmer, with visible horizontal banding down the length that is part of the character of the piece. The medallion and the corner pieces are ivory, outlined in a soft gray-brown that does most of the drawing, and a washed sage olive appears in the leafwork and along the lower field. The border is a mushroom taupe against cream. Nothing in the palette is saturated; the whole rug sits within two or three steps of ivory.

Making

Hand-knotted in wool in the 1970s, with cotton foundation visible on the reverse in image nine, where the knotting is even and the back is clear enough to follow the pattern. The condition is good and stable, the low pile a result of use rather than damage, and the ends and sides are intact. It is one of the larger pieces among the rugs here, sized for a dining table or a full seating group.