Antique Bidjar Rug BB7198 10'10" × 17'0" $50,000

A late 19th century Persian Bidjar antique rug, the slate blue field with an angular trellis overall of rosettes, leafy vinery and linked palmettes within a camel palmette and feathery leaf border.

Bidjar rugs like most antique carpets are named for the area in which they were woven. Bijar is a small city in Northwestern Iran about 150 miles south of Tabriz. The town of Bijar and surrounding countryside are mainly populated by Kurds. Kurdish culture and artistic ability are clearly visible in the quality of the region’s antique carpets. Though a small town (population 20,000 in 1900), Bijar was at the center of a major weaving area that became well-known throughout the world for the very high-quality rugs produced in the small workshops of Bijar and often in homes throughout the surrounding countryside as a family undertaking. Somewhere between the sophisticated city Persian rugs and the more primitive village and tribal rugs, lie the rugs of Bijar. Westerners and Persian nobility have commissioned the Kurdish weavers of the Bijar region for the last several hundred years to produce these almost magical carpets, the finest of which are called “Halvai.”