Vintage Adraskan Baluch Rug, Hand-Knotted Wool, Tribal, 4x8, Rust & Brown

Details

Description

A vintage hand-knotted Baluch rug, worked on a dark aubergine-brown field in madder rust, camel and ivory. The Baluch are … Read more A vintage hand-knotted Baluch rug, worked on a dark aubergine-brown field in madder rust, camel and ivory. The Baluch are a weaving people spread across western Afghanistan and the surrounding region, and their rugs are among the most recognisable of all tribal weaving — dark grounds, restrained colour, and ivory used so sparingly that every touch of it counts.

The field carries an allover repeat of small stylised flowering plants set in ordered rows, each one drawn slightly differently, so the pattern reads as a planted field rather than a printed grid. Against the dark ground the rust and camel come forward warmly and the small ivory highlights sit like points of light.

The framing is generous for a rug of this size: a wide rust main border filled with dark interlocking hooked motifs and small stars, set between narrow guard bands of reciprocal drawing. Both ends finish in the Baluch manner, with a flat-woven kilim panel in brown carrying fine stripes above the original wool fringe — a detail these weavers took as much care over as the pile itself.

Condition: an old rug that has been used and shows it honestly. The pile is low overall with more wear through the centre of the field. The kilim end panels are largely intact with some loss, and the fringe is short and uneven with wear at both ends. Selvedges are sound. Please see all photographs, which show the rug as it is.

Measuring 43 by 93 inches, the long proportion suits a hallway, an entry, the side of a bed, a narrow kitchen, or layering over a larger natural-fibre rug. The dark ground and rust border work in bohemian, eclectic, traditional and warm modern interiors, and this is a rug that looks best where people actually walk on it. See less