Old Bijar | 87 x 66 cm | Nr. Z-1780

Floral old Bijar, dark red with border and medallion

Origin	Persia
Dimensions	87 cm x 66 cm (= 0.57 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes) Weft & Warp: cotton
knots per m²2	300.000
Pile height	7mm
Year of manufacture	1960
Colour	Dark red, dark blue
Edition	one-of-a-kind piece

 

Origin

This rug was knotted in Bijar, in the province of Kermanshah in north-western Iran. Bijar rugs are among the sturdiest and finest Oriental rugs. The majority of the population in Bijar are Kurds.

In the Kurdish Bijar, a particularly thick and extremely hard weft yarn is beaten in. The result is a board-stiff, exceptionally hard-wearing rug. The more recent Bijars in particular are adorned with the typical Herati pattern, also known as the fish pattern. This old Bijar is around 60 years old and a true collector's piece.

 

Pattern

The edge of the rug is graced by a surround (border). The border forms a wonderful contrast to the centre.

In the middle of this Bijar's central field lies the symmetrical centre, also known as the medallion. The design of the field is subordinate to the medallion, so that the medallion appears to float on the field.

The lush floral motifs of this Bijar are elegantly drawn and full of variety. The graceful plant symbols, depicting blossoms, leaves and branches, are artfully intertwined.

The background of this Bijar is dark blue. Dark red and dark blue also dominate the overall impression. The border is worked in dark red and dark blue. In the dark red centre, dark blue and beige are combined.

 

Condition

This Bijar has a history. It was hand-knotted around 1960. It has been thoroughly cleaned and is in good but only partly restored condition. The fringes could do with a repair. We have not fully restored this Bijar because we feel it has a special presence just as it is. If that is what you want, we will of course be happy to take the restoration further for you. We can bring almost any rug back to near-perfect condition.

 

Material

The technique used to make the materials for the pile of this Bijar is more than 200 years old. The wool was dyed with natural dyes and spun by hand. Dyeing with natural or plant dyes is more complicated, more expensive and more time-consuming than dyeing with chemical colours. For a luminous red, for example, you need around one kilo of ground madder root as dye for every kilo of wool. For a strong yellow that is not too pale, it even takes two kilograms of weld per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is labour-intensive and time-consuming too. On top of that, fewer and fewer people still know how to spin wool by hand.

But the effort is worth it: dyeing with natural colours allows the high-quality wool to keep its natural lanolin content. Wool that has been dyed with natural dyes and spun by hand creates fascinating, shifting patterns. The charm of hand-spun wool, with its slight irregularities and natural shades, comes into its own as a contrast in modern interiors, but just as much in rooms furnished in a more traditional or country-house style. The weft and warp threads of this Bijar are made of cotton. This versatile material is tear-resistant and elastic, which makes it especially well suited to a hard-wearing foundation.