Rug 96701

Imagine a rectangular wool rug that radiates the vibrant energy and rustic charm of authentic tribal art. If you were to touch its surface, you would feel a substantial and dense wool pile of medium height. The texture is not uniform and smooth but has the honest, slightly coarse and springy quality of hand-spun wool, full of life and character. The rug is finished on its shorter ends with thick, off-white fringes that are simply knotted. Along the two longer sides, the edges are meticulously wrapped in Crimson Red and Navy Blue yarn, creating a decorative and durable “barber pole” stripe that is a hallmark of Shiraz weaving. This is not just a rug; it’s a robust and expressive piece of folk art.
The visual journey begins with the large central field, a rectangle of a deep and warm Burnt Orange. This orange ground is teeming with life, densely packed with a delightful and seemingly random assortment of small, scattered tribal motifs, leaving very little open space. Each motif is a small symbol from the weaver’s world. You can pick out dozens of small, eight-petaled flowers, no larger than a thumbnail, with Navy Blue centers and White petals. Elsewhere, you might find a small, stylized figure of a four-legged animal, perhaps a dog or a goat, woven in solid White, with a tail that curls over its back. Other geometric forms, like small diamonds and eight-pointed stars in Green and Blue, fill the remaining space, creating a surface that is endlessly fascinating to explore.
Dominating this busy orange field is a powerful column of three large, interconnected, diamond-shaped medallions that run down the rug’s central axis. Let’s focus on the middle medallion. Its body is a solid, deep Navy Blue. Its diamond shape is not drawn with a smooth line, but a serrated “latch-hook” outline of bright White. This outline looks like a series of tiny, interconnected stair-steps, giving the shape a dynamic, electric quality. Inside this large blue diamond rests a smaller, nested diamond of a clear, medium Blue. This, in turn, frames the medallion’s heart: a perfect, eight-pointed star. The star’s core is Yellow, and its points are rendered in alternating White and Green. The medallions to the top and bottom are nearly identical, connected to the central one by a small, pole-like figure, unifying them into a single, powerful totem.
This entire vibrant composition is framed by a complex and beautiful border system. The main, widest border provides a brilliant contrast, with a background of clean, bright White. Upon this white canvas, a continuous chain of diamond-shaped figures is woven. Each diamond is outlined in Navy Blue and is connected to its neighbor by a small, bar-like shape. Inside each of these diamonds is a smaller, geometric flower, rendered in a vivid Crimson Red with a Green center. On either side of this main white border are narrower guard stripes. There is a thin, simple stripe of solid Crimson Red. Next to that is a more intricate stripe featuring a continuous, meandering wave-like line, like a river, in Navy Blue and Red. These multiple layers of the border work together to create a formal and fitting frame for the lively, symbolic world woven within the rug’s field.