This is my first post, and I would like your opinions on this small hanging rug I inherited. The rug is “landscape” orientation, 50” x 30”, with a central picture that looks like a landscape. Colors are bright, with blue water, blue-green land, trees with large different red and brown flowers, and an interesting asymmetric brown and black “land” partitioning the central field of the rug. The flowers in the inner field are lush, with slight differences among them. The border has boteh that are doubled, blue sweeping one way, white the other. The larger flowers in the border are standard shape, but interestingly the flowers in the upper border are blue-white-blue-brown (outer to inner), and the flowers on the lower border are blue-white-gray-brown (outer to inner). It is definitely wool warp and wool weft. When I partially unraveled a fringe, I think it has 3 threads. Every once in a while, there is a silk thread in the fringe – I think this was used to tie off the lower fringe into tassels. It is fairly high knot count, when I count with a magnified ruler, I get 23-24 knots per inch across the warp, so it’s probably in the 500 + kpsi range. The rug is in perfect condition except that the top fringe has been trimmed off, though it looks “finished” as such. A sleeve has been stitched to the top back for a hanging rod. I am very interested in your opinions into the origin and age of this small hanging rug.

The rug appears to be Turkish or perhaps romanian. Either way, it is a gul ferang design that is popular in bijar ca. 1900 and many other persian as well as armenian rugs with euro influence. This rug is perhaps 30 years old. Although the weave is quite fine, you are seeing two nodes to each knot on the horizontal, which are intended to be counted as one knot.

I did some searching on the gol farang design, three large flowers (often stylized roses) in a circular field with winding vines is a common theme;
I appreciate your expertise. When I was looking for other examples, I came across a rug with similar flowers and border that was listed
as a Bakhtiari - is this a possibility, or is there something else in the design, weave or structure that makes this unlikely ?

Very interesting rug. I looked at all pictures several times and it there are a lot of things that don´t fit together. Main border and both small borders design is Kashan. Center design Gol Farang is made in many places so there is no way this helps. Warp seems to be wool, warp looks like wool, can´t be defined from the pictures. My idea is eastern Iran near Mashad. The knot structure, the 3 lined long border kilim, the way the kilim ends at the fringes are woven and the Do Gereh Knot that holds the fringes would fit Ferdoz area. Structure has some Balutch influence. Probably some one mixed up a few designs and this is what came out. Cool piece. Not of great value but fun for a collector to look at.