Kurdish medallion rug with humans and animals Kurdish medallion rug with humans and animalsClick on image to view in larger size.
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North-West Persian, Kurdish. Difficult to pin down. A double-wefted wool-based rug thatshows a strange technical and design break after the bottom border was woven (see also section Structure). This and the whimsical design suggest a marginal village production, probably around 1900.
Three blue hexagon-diamond medallions with multiple stepped outlines that end in a small diamond or double diamond linking to the adjacent medallion. The medallions seem to hover over the strongly saturated red ground. A slightly lighter red is used in the border and some parts inside the medallions.
An interesting design inside the medallions: a central stepped octagon, at top and bottom three arms ending in small diamonds, frames a rosette. This central motif is itself framed top and bottom by a system of two quartered squares with angular extensions, probably floral in origin. It would be worthwhile looking out for court or manufacture motifs that this might have been dervived from. Not to forget, adding to the charm are many small human figures with spread legs and arms.
Strewn all over the field are comb-like, long-legged animals, human figures, and small diamonds.
An interesting feature is the wide white ground main border. Witness the break of design and change of weaving structure upwards of the bottom main border, which shows a herati (sometoimes called 'samovar') design. The rest of the main border show a much simpler design made up of serrated leaves, lilies (?) and clusters of 9 coarse rosettes, the central one divided in eight radial segments.
The minor borders are the typical Kurdish blossom meander scrolls. An interesting feature are the narrow vertical barberpole borders bracketing the field (not to be found at top or bottom).
The rug measures 227 x 126 cm or 7ft.5in. x 4ft.1in. (including ends). Symmetric knots, off-whote wool warps, brownish-pink to brick-red wool wefts, normally two, sometimes maybe more. Starts with depressed warps up to the top of the lower main border, then suddenly switches to non-depressed, and the rig gets wider in the process. Did another weaver take over? What happened? Some mild vertical creasing in this area of change of structure. The knot count is h.29/10cm x v.27/10cm at the bottom and h.30/10cm x v.30/10cm for the rest of the rug. Which roughly equals 900 knots/dm2 (translated to knots per square inch, this is roughly h7.5 x v7.5, ie., a knot count of ca. 56 kpsi). The selvedge consists of two warps wrapped in red wool. The bottom ends has a short flatwoven skirt with multiple decoration lines in alternating colours. At the top end, warps are worked into a narrow band of oblique wrapping. Flexible handle.
The field has a nicely saturated tomato red (madder), a lighter red in some details of the border and inside the medallions; dark nicely abrashed indigo blue on the medallions, medium and light indigo blue in the main border; white; a pretty light pea green in the stepped medallion frame; a pale pistacchio green, various shades of brown and a straw yellow in the main border. All dyes are organic except, possibly, (but I am not certain) the strong light red.
Quite good pile, structurally sound and complete with some treadfold wear in the area where the structure changes from depressed to not depressed. Mostly good pile, lower in the centre. Selvedges are a bit ragged, wrappping partly gone, can easily be re-wrapped. Not washed, a bit dusty, but not particlarly dirty. No holes or tears, no glue, no odour.
All photos are taken outdoors in sunlight.
