Tribal Rugs

Tribal rugs are woven by nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples for their own use rather than for a commercial market, and that changes almost everything about them. Looms are portable and therefore narrow, so formats tend towards runners and smaller carpets. Designs are carried in memory instead of drawn on a cartoon, so motifs repeat with small variations and a weaver may resolve a border differently at one end than the other. Those irregularities are the point rather than a fault. Abrash, the horizontal colour banding that appears when a new batch of dyed wool enters the weaving, is common and prized. The pieces gathered here are Persian tribal weavings, including Qashqai and Khamse work from the south and geometric weaving from the north west, all knotted in wool. Expect strong colour, confident geometry and the particular liveliness that comes from a rug made without a plan on paper.