Afshar Rugs

Woven by the Afshar tribal weavers of Southern Persia, these rugs are the “jewelry” of the tribal world. They often feature the boteh, the curved paisley leaf, repeated across the field, and are known for their saturated colors, particularly deep indigo blues set against coral and salmon tones.

Some Afshar rugs come in a squarish proportion, and those pieces are prized, but they are a minority of the type, so the measurement is worth checking on any piece described that way. They bring a soulful, ethnographic energy to a space, working beautifully as a focal point in a study or a creative workspace.

Afshar rugs are highly sought-after Persian rugs woven by tribal weavers in the Kerman region, known for their bold geometric motifs. These durable, often small-format pieces display allover geometric fields held by multiple narrow borders, patterns characteristic of the distinct tribal designs and motifs used by the weavers. Four measured facts about the antique Afshars in this archive are worth having before you browse it. They come small: the median long side across the 21 we stock is 6.2 feet against 10.2 feet for our antique inventory as a whole, 43% are scatter size, and none of them is a room size carpet. The drawing is overwhelmingly allover rather than centred, at 91% against 55% catalogue wide, and 62% carry our geometric tag against 39%. The palette is indigo and coral: blue runs at more than twice the catalogue rate and coral, salmon and pink at more than three times. And they are genuinely old for the money, with 48% catalogued to the nineteenth century against 29% of our antiques, at a median of $4,500. Size for size that median is level with any other small antique we hold, so the apparent saving is a matter of format rather than of quality. Our antique Afshar rug buying and identification guide sets out the measured size and price bands, how to read the designs and colours, and the checks worth making before you buy one.