Description

This northeast Persian rug was made by a Balouchi weaver in the Khorasan region in around 1900. The field is a lattice of hexagons with a simple red outline. Each hexagon has a cruciform motif in the central diamond and  opposing pairs of outward facing hooks forming a rectangle around the diamond. This arrangement is reminiscent of a gul in a Turkoman carpet. The ground colour of the hexagons is alternating red and dark brown, thus forming diagonal rows structuring the all over design of the field.  The main border is a classic Balouchi design of meandering vines with alternate dark-ground stars and three white flower heads on a stem. Inside the main border, one of the minor borders is filled with a chain of eight-pointed stars. The original kelim ends, including the knotting on the fringe, are still intact. The lovely condition  and the lustrous quality of the wool make this rug a fine example of its type. As is typical of the majority of Balouchi rugs, the colour scheme is dark red, dark brown, a very dark blue and a near-black which is slightly corroded in places, plus some ivory from undyed light wool.

Jeff W Boucher, a former President of the International Hajji Baba Society of Washington DC and collector of Balouchi rugs,  has several rugs of this type illustrated in his Baluchi Woven Treasures. Alexandria, Virginia, 1989. Plate 6, in particular, has an almost identical main border around a lattice of diagonal rows of diamond shapes (op.cit., p. 31) and is attributed by Boucher to the Mahvalat area of Khorasan.

Wool pile on a wool foundation, very good condition

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