Carpet of hand-knotted woollen pile and cotton, Iran, 19th century

Carpet of hand-knotted woollen pile on a woollen warp and cotton weft, asymmetrical knot, open to the left; 125-150 knots per sq. in (1,800-2,250 per sq. dm).

WARP: dark brown and white wool; Z2S; 25 threads per inch (90 per dm).

WEFT: light pink cotton; Z2S; 3 parallel threads per shoot and red wool (at the lower end); Z-spun, unplied; 2 shoots after each row of knots; 10- 12 knots per sq. inch (40-50 per dm).

PILE: wool; 12 colours: dark red, red, orange, yellow, light yellow, dark green, green, dark blue, blue, light blue, brown, white; asymmetrical knot open to the left and tied around 2 warp threads; 125-150 per sq. inch (1800 to 2250 per sq. dm).

SIDE FINISH: one cord oversewn with red and green wool in stripes.

END FINISH: Lower: 1" (2 cm) of plain weave with brown woollen weft, turned and stitched on place. Upper: 1" (2.5 cm) of plain weave with white woollen weft, turned and stitched in place.

DESIGN: Field with a dark blue ground with four bands of four large botehs each containing 3 or more smaller botehs and small geometric and animal motifs. Similar small motifs are scattered on the ground. In the top of each large boteh is a small flowering plant. The large botehs change in shape along the length of the carpet.

Main border: white ground with stylised double meander on three sides linking rosettes and botehs; on the fourth (bottom) border are individual motifs. On the outer edge on four sides is a crenelated pattern in yellow outlined in red.

Outer border: yellow ground with floral meander. Immediately above the lower outer border is the beginning of a blue ground border which has been discontinued.

There is no inner border. On either side of main border are narrow, diagonally striped guard stripes.

Upper and lower bands: three chequered bands:- Lower edge has (1) blue/white (2) green/red (3) blue/white squares each with a small motif. Upper edge has (1) light blue/orange/ brown (2) red/ white/orange/ light blue (3) light blue/orange/ brown. These are lined-up along the upper edge but are slightly off-set along the lower edge.

Bequeathed by Brigadier W. E. Clark

Several seams indicate that this carpet has been cut and repaired and that the pattern may have originally looked more symmetrical but the oddest thing is the main border as it runs along the lower part of the carpet: one pattern with a dark blue ground was begun and abandoned and was replaced with a border of strange motifs which was then transformed into a more conventional pattern.

T.63-1969