10'6" x 13'8" Persian Bijar Rug | Rare Hunting Design with Lions and Stags | About 60 Years Old
Hunting rugs turn up regularly from the workshops of central Persia. From Bijar, almost never. This 10'6" x 13'8" Persian Bijar rug is the exception. Golden lions pounce on gazelles, grey-blue wolves run down stags, and spotted dragons coil in the corners, all across a cherry red field around a navy and ivory medallion. Underneath the drama it is a true Bijar: hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation at about 18 knots to the inch, roughly 320 to 340 knots per square inch, and beaten down so densely it feels like a board in the hand. It is about 60 years old and has never been used. The colors are so fresh it could pass for a rug made this year. It comes with our certificate of authenticity, and it is a genuine collector's piece.
Design and Motifs
The medallion sets the stage. An olive star of ivory teardrop forms surrounds a royal blue core, small blue birds circle it on a navy ground, and an ivory and slate blue frame of interlocking scrolls opens out into the field, with blue palmette pendants at top and bottom. Around it, the hunt plays out in mirror image across all 4 quarters. Gold and mustard lions bring down ivory gazelles. Slate blue wolves chase grey stags with full antlers. Pairs of lions face each other on either side of the pendants, and small birds dart among roses, lotus blossoms, paisley forms and navy star flowers. Toward each corner the field turns navy, where pale blue dragons spotted in red coil around brown beasts beneath sweeping grey-blue cloud bands. In the very corners, ivory and taupe panels hold small brown animals among the flowers. The main border is a butter yellow ground, filled with pairs of long-tailed pheasants beak to beak, clusters of red and pink roses, round blossoms and more grey-blue animals moving through the scrolls. Navy guard stripes of rosettes and fine zigzag bands frame it, and a red outer band finishes the edge.
The Colors: Cherry Red, Navy and Butter Yellow
The field is a clear cherry red, warm and saturated, with no fading anywhere after 6 decades. Deep navy, close to midnight, fills the corner spandrels and outlines the medallion, giving the whole design a strong frame inside the border. The main border is a soft butter yellow, warmer than ivory, and it makes the reds and pinks of the roses glow. The animals bring their own palette: gold, mustard and olive for the lions, ivory and cream for the gazelles, slate blue and grey for the wolves and stags, and powder blue dotted with red for the dragons. The flowers add rose pink, coral and deep crimson, with forest green and olive in the leaves. Royal blue marks the very center of the medallion, while taupe and chocolate brown shade the corner panels and the smaller creatures. Every color is crisp and sharply separated, with no bleeding into the light grounds. The fringe is natural ivory cotton.
Bijar: The Iron Rug of Persia, in a Rare Design
Bijar is a Kurdish weaving town in western Persia, and its rugs have earned the name "the iron rug of Persia". Weavers there pack each row down with a heavy metal comb, which makes the rug so dense and stiff that a good Bijar is nearly indestructible. Most Bijars carry the herati, or mahi (fish) pattern, or bold geometric medallions. Pictorial hunting scenes belong to the city workshops of central Persia and almost never appear on a Bijar loom, which is what makes this piece so unusual. Here, Bijar's toughness meets a drawing ambitious enough for a city workshop, at a knot count high enough to give each animal a face, a mane and a sense of motion. Among 10x14 Bijar rugs, a 60-year-old hunting design in never-used condition is a rare find. It was built to anchor a large room for generations.
