Afshar – Southern Persia

You will be fascinated by this highly sophisticated rug, woven some 150 years ago by the Afshar nomads of southern Persia. Across the deep indigo field, ordered rows of botéhs advance with crystal-clear detailing — a sharpness and nuance surprising in tribal weaving, each teardrop drawn in madder and ivory with miniature precision. The luminescent wool keeps the colours shining unaltered after a century and a half, and the densely ornamented field is held by a procession of colourful borders. Meticulous, absorbent, unique: the nomadic loom at its most disciplined.

The genuinely antique example of the group: intact natural dyes and the even, honest wear of more than 140 years — precisely the ageing collectors expect of a 19th-century Afshar.