Just joined the forum and wanted to say hi to everybody.

I fell in love with a rug about ten years ago (one I could actually afford to buy), and have been looking at rugs (starting with antique tribal rugs, but branching out), and reading up on rugs, and been mesmerized by their beauty ever since. I'm not a collector (as in someone who buys lots of rugs), but have over the years acquired some rugs that keep giving me pleasure every day, and every now and then just can't resist buying another one. I prefer an antique rug with some flaws to a recently made one in perfect condition any time. But I also get a lot of pleasure from looking at rugs online (or in museums) that I can't afford, such as 16th/17th century Safavid rugs ... . I also often have questions about rugs, e.g. about certain strange border motives or about the depiction of three-dimensionality in floral motives, or of optical illusions in tribal rugs and all sorts of other things. I'll ask you all about this in due course.

So. That's me. Shereen.

Attached is one of my recent acquisitions, which I used to test the attachment feature. I don't know what kind of rug it is (it's a symmetrical knot and pre-1900 and has 12 colours, I believe, a kpsi of roughly 144, all natural dyes, short pile, and one of the wefts is blueish-grey, I bought it as a "Bijar, but not the thick kind", but I can't tell whether that's true), and it's one of my favourites. I've never seen this design or anything like it anywhere.

Thanks for the welcome.

Thanks!! I'm out of batteries for my camera, so the photos I have may not be good enough, but here is what I have, see attachments. Shereen

ps: the selvages are re-overcast. There are also repairs from four different times (i.e. with four different types of wool), from (I guess) moth damage, unravelling corners, a damaged weft (from folding?), and some areas are down to the knots. Anything but "mint" condition ...

Many thanks, that's a very helpful new option. (And I feel flattered that you like the rug.)

As the rug seems to have symmetrical knots, and very fluent curvilinear design, I was thinking that it might be one of those late 19th century Tabriz rugs where the weavers adapted designs from classical persian carpets (the field design, with its asymmetrical element looking a bit like some of these 'book-cover' rugs), and there is this immense variety of classical looking curvilinear field designs roughly 1880-1900, but this is just a guess, I'm not in any way an expert.

I'm still puzzled about the border design (see my posts in comments and questions for close-up pics), I just can't find any pics of rugs which either have a comparable motive or show where this motive could have been adapted from.

Thanks again for your suggestion, much appreciated.
(I hope to get some close-up pictures of sides and ends online within a couple of days.)

Thanks so much, Robert, very helpful.

I attach some more pictures. I'm a lousy photographer with a lousy camera, so can't do really good close-ups. (Also: the yellow looks too electric on the photos, the other colours have the roughly right shade but are a little too bright.)

Two things I couldn't get on the photos are these:
(i) it's almost as if there are two layers of warps, one on top of the other. I mean, at the ends, it's as if almost exactly under every warp there is another warp.
(ii) the pile (very short clipped) has almost no direction, even where it's full, rather almost stands up straight. Not completely of course, you can still only stroke it in one direction.

On age of the rug:
(i) the rug is not top-bottom symmetric, in that the medaillon pendants are one heart shaped, one drop shaped. I've only ever seen this on pre-1910 rugs. It seems after that, at least for commercially produced rugs, if there is a centre medaillon, left-right and top-bottom symmtry is a must. (As you have it when you use a quarter cartoon). Some rug books say this kind of pendant asymmetry (which is common on safavid rugs) was meant to symbolize sun and moon. I'm not sure I believe this, but in any case, the asymmetry is not accidental.
(ii) the main-border corner solution: In pre-1880 Tabriz rugs there is often no corner solution at all, just as in tribal rugs. Roughly after that, weavers seem to try and put a diagonal version of amain border motive in the four courners, but in pre-1900 rugs as a result often have to compromise the vertical main-border design towards the end. On commercially produced rugs round 1920, that never seems to happen, rather there are perfect corner solutions (as you'd get them with quarter cartoons).
So I was putting the rug as pre-1910, but I'm happy to be proven wrong, I like it anyhow.

Thanks so much, Ed. Great. I'd never heard the term "warp bundles" before, but that's exactly what it is: the outer cord is just four warps, the inner cord is three or four warps, as far as I can tell, looking exactly like the warps of the rug (cotton), but wrapped in dark Navy wool. So probably Tabriz. Good.

Can anything be said about the age from the pics?

Thanks again.

Many thanks, Robert. I love all the info I get here. I don't want to drag this thread out forever, but it intrigues me that you say "very slight possibility of Bidjar", partly because the dealer called it a Bidjar (I never asked him why he thought so, I just knew I wanted the rug ...), partly because I'd love to learn how do distinguish between the various types of Persian rugs myself. Would you mind saying what features of the rug made you consider this possibility? No hurry.

After looking at your rug again I have to say I have I no idea where it's really from. It might even be Turkish.
But anyway it's nice looking.