Antique Malayer Celadon Medallion Persian Rug, Navy Field, 1890–1910
A viewing is a request, not a booking: we write back within 24 hours to confirm a time, in open hours or out of them. No account needed.
ABOUT THIS PIECE
An antique Malayer Persian rug from the Hamadan region of western Persia, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation.
A lobed celadon medallion with pendants sits on a field of deep navy, with spandrels of celadon and apricot at the corners. Flowering shrubs rise from the base and mirror at the top, drawn with a curving fluency that belongs to Malayer rather than to the villages around it, in apricot, pale blue, ivory, gold and cinnamon. The border is kept narrow, a small floral meander on olive, so the field carries the rug.
The celadon is the reason to look twice. It drifts across the medallion, greyer in one place and bluer at the foot of one side, and the navy ground moves the same way in places. That is abrash, the mark of small hand-dyed lots, and this piece shows more of it than most. The browns in the leaves sit a fraction below the pile around them, with the muted surface that iron-mordanted brown takes on with age. There is no orange, nothing electric, and nothing in the palette later than the 1920s.
The weave is single-wefted on cotton warps, the weft dyed blue, which is the Malayer structure. The cotton foundation and the corrosion in the browns together place the rug between about 1890 and 1920.
Malayer sits east of Hamadan, and its weavers took the village technique of the region and put finer drawing and a gentler palette into it, which is why the best Malayer pieces are so often mistaken for Farahan or Sarouk. This is one of those.
There is no repair or reweaving. The ends are original, cleaned and re-secured. The selvedges were replaced before export.
At 244 by 105cm it suits a hallway or the foot of a bed. Explore more antique and vintage Persian rugs.
SPECIFICATIONS
How it sits in your room.
244 × 105 CM (8' × 3'5"), DRAWN TO SCALE WITH TYPICAL AUSTRALIAN FURNITURE SIZES.
Small beside a 3-seater sofa. It suits a reading corner, under an armchair or across an entry better than a sofa setting.
Only 13 cm of rug would show beyond even a four-seat table, so the chairs would sit off it. This one belongs in a living room or bedroom.
Under the lower part of a queen bed with 46 cm of rug showing on each side, so your feet land on it either side of the bed.
Measure the room, or just the area the rug should cover, and we will draw this rug in it to scale.
