Palmettes and Flowers Lattice Rug

This offset pattern is composed of palmettes and flowers, one has the impression that it is only part of a larger scheme designed 19th-century rug from Bidjar region, Eastern Kurdistan area. Very similar palmettes, drawn in a curvilinear manner and combined with identical forked leaves, can be seen on a few examples of workshop carpets made from the late seventeenth century onward in Herat in Khurasan province, east Persia, and the same pattern known as Harshang design was used in the Caucasus in the eighteenth century, as well. The design employs floral, richly complex repeating arrays of brilliant color palmettes and flowers that mark it as a lineal descendant of the great vase-technique carpets of the seventeenth century.Kurdistan has not usually been given its due as a region that has produced rugs of considerable excellence of design and rich brilliant colors, probably from early times on, well into the 19th century. Technically they range from the solid, heavy, double-warped Bijars of the 19th century to the flexible rug of this type, and the Kilims, or flat-woven rugs of great delicacy. The design displayed in this example, clearly derived from a 17th-century model, proved so popular that it spread not only to Eastern Persia but to the Caucasus as well. It continues well into the 18th century and can still be found in Caucasian rugs of the 19th century. The design of this rug is based on an alternating succession of two large lateral palmettes surrounded by small palmette blossoms, a complex palmette arrangement composed of a central round floral medallion, four large palmette forms of two different designs facing this rosette, and four diamond-shaped cartouches, filled with rosettes, on the diagonal axis. A small-scaled trellis system fills, as a secondary pattern, most of the background of the field. The border design follows a well-established tradition of cartouche and star medallion succession. Both guard stripes are filled with a lively angular leafy meander scroll. The lattice appears to continue into infinity – as though we can see the section that is framed by the characteristic Bidjar border. The design of the rug is interpreted by our designers, and vivid colors are chosen for this rug.

Color summary: 11 colors in total, most used 4 colors are;

• Imperial Red  415 (Madder Root)
• Midnight Blue  347 (Spurge - Madder Root - Indigo)
• Falu Red  400 (Madder Root - Henna - Walnut Husk)
• Pyrite Gold  128 (Spurge)