Bijar | 300 x 85 cm | Nr. Z-4619

Bijar runner, light red with border and an all-over pattern (finely detailed)

Origin	Persia
Dimensions	300 cm x 85 cm (= 2.55 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes) Weft & Warp: cotton
knots per m²2	250.000
Pile height	12mm
Year of manufacture	1995
Colour	Light 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 into the weave. The result is a board-stiff rug that is exceptionally hard-wearing. The younger Bijars in particular are decorated with the typical Herati pattern, also known as the fish pattern.

Pattern

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

This Bijar has enormous character. The labyrinthine background is hypnotic and incredibly detailed. The repeating elements in the central field of this Bijar rug have no specific centre (what is known as a repeat pattern). The recurring pattern feels calming, yet never dull. Rugs with a repeat pattern are also described as all-over patterned.

The background of this Bijar is light red. The border is worked in light red and dark blue.

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 dyestuff per kilo of wool. For a strong yellow that isn't too pale, you even need two kilograms of the dyestuff weld per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is time- and labour-intensive as well. 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 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.