9' x 11'9" Pakistani Ziegler Rug | Wool | Garnet Red and Peacock Blue

A 9' x 11'9" Ziegler knotted by hand in Pakistan, with a 5/16" wool pile and an ivory cotton fringe at both ends. Seen whole, it reads as a dark red field carrying an all-over pattern of pale flowers and vines, framed by a broad blue border and two bands of saffron gold. It is a rectangular piece of room size, and one of the more strongly drawn Zieglers among our hand-knotted rugs.

The design

The field has no medallion. Instead a lattice of thin vines runs corner to corner, hung with large open rosettes, lotus palmettes, fan-shaped leaves and small budded stems, the pattern mirrored across the long axis so that each half answers the other. Several of the palmettes carry a shield or cartouche at the centre, drawn in cream with a pink core, and the serrated leaves lean out from the stems in pairs. The main border is a deep blue band of alternating forms: a red vase-like device with hooked arms flanking a blue palmette, then a broad cream flower head, repeating around all four sides. Inside and outside it sit narrow guard stripes, one of cream and salmon with small rosettes and arrow motifs, the other a gold band of scrolling leaf tips, and the outermost edge finishes in a wide saffron border with its own vine.

The colour

The field is a garnet red that shifts noticeably along its length, lighter and almost brick where the light crosses the pile, darker and closer to oxblood in the lower rows. Against it the drawing is done in butter yellow and cream, with salmon pink at the flower centres and sage to teal green in the leaves. The main border is peacock blue, deeper at the corners and brighter in the open ground of the vase motifs, and the same blue is used as an outline throughout the field, which ties the border back to the centre. The gold of the outer band is the one colour that stands clear of both.

The making

Hand-knotted, with a 5/16" wool pile that photographs show as dense and slightly lustrous where the light strikes the flowers. The reverse, visible at the folded corner, shows even knot rows and the pattern legible from the back. The warps run out at each end as plain cream fringe. The table records the condition as new.