Bakhtiari Panel Pattern Rug | 300 x 207 cm | Nr. 18399

Floral Bakhtiari panel pattern rug, rust red with a plain border and panel pattern

Origin	Pakistan
Dimensions	300 cm x 207 cm (= 6.21 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes) Weft & Warp: cotton
knots per m²2	120.000
Pile height	6mm
Condition	new
Colour	Rust red, beige yellow
Edition	one-of-a-kind piece

Origin

The pattern of this Bakhtiari panel-pattern rug takes its cue from the pattern elements of classic Bakhtiari rugs. This rug, however, was not knotted in Iran but in Pakistan.

The Bakhtiari (also Bachtiari) are an ancient, widely branched people living in south-western Iran. Their rugs are known collectively as Bakhtiar or Bakhtiari, where the "i" corresponds to our preposition "of". Bakhtiari rugs – the rugs of the Bakhtiari – comprise numerous sub-provenances with a variety of pattern types.

In our Bakhtiari panel-pattern rugs the classic pattern elements are arranged in panels that seem to float on the contrasting, monochrome ground. As with classic Bakhtiari rugs, natural dyes and hand-spun wool were used in their making, so that despite their intensity they feel pleasantly restrained and resemble their classic models in workmanship and line.

Pattern

The so-called panel pattern of this Bakhtiari panel-pattern rug recalls a lushly planted garden with geometrically divided, individually framed beds. This design is typical, which is why panel-pattern rugs are also known as garden rugs in German. The individual compartments of the pattern of this Bakhtiari panel-pattern rug show different motifs, yet follow a strictly symmetrical, rectangular arrangement.

There is a reason for this: large parts of Persia and many other regions of the Middle and Near East are desert- or steppe-like arid areas, where so-called irrigation horticulture is widely practised. Water is channelled to the beds through small irrigation canals. The panel pattern renders this irrigation system in heavily simplified form. Because of the dryness in these regions, blooming and verdant gardens are also something quite special. The panel pattern therefore probably goes back to the wish to bring a little garden – and with it a small paradise – into the home. In the Koran the term garden, as the earthly counterpart to paradise – a word of Old Persian origin, incidentally – appears very frequently.

Material

The technique used to produce the materials for the pile of this Bakhtiari panel-pattern rug is more than 200 years old. The wool was dyed with natural colours 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 dyestuff per kilo of wool. For a strong yellow that is not too pale you even need two kilograms of the dyestuff weld per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is time-consuming and labour-intensive too. What is more, fewer and fewer people still know how to spin wool by hand.

But the effort is worth it: dyeing with natural colours lets the high-quality wool keep its natural fat content. Wool dyed with natural colours and spun by hand creates fascinating, shimmering patterns. The charm of hand-spun wool, with its slight irregularities and natural shades, unfolds as a contrast in modern interiors, but also in rooms furnished in a traditional or country-house style. The weft and warp threads of this Bakhtiari panel-pattern rug are made of cotton. This versatile material is tear-resistant and elastic and therefore particularly well suited to a hard-wearing foundation.