Magnificent Large Persian Bidjar Carpet

This magnificent Persian Bidjar carpet is an example from an identifiable, significant group of decorative carpets often classified as ‘Garous’. Garous is a Province in northwest Persia, the most important town in which is Bidjar. The compostion and pattern drawing defines the attribution to this group, which appears to originate from the early 18th Century, though possibly before this time. Persian Bidjar carpets are made in a distinctive, traditional, and unique way. As the knots are applied, the created pile is beaten down to make the pile strands stand upright as opposed to the pile lying down creating a ‘knap’. The pile strands standing upright, allows for an extremely dense pile to be created and gives enhanced detailing of the pattern elements. This is clearly present in this Persian Bidjar carpet which displays this recognisable established design. The dark blue field is a characteristic of Garus carpets and acts as a an effective background to show off the pattern details to stand out to maximum effect and as such gives depth and clarity to the design. The design is made up of boldly drawn angular elements epitomised by the formal arrangement of the red and ivory split arabesques, which are combined superbly with extremely intricately drawn plants, centred around the central column of medium sized blue or yellow palmettes. These variations of scale drawing present harmonic contrasts which present a majestic and beautifully balanced composition in this large scale Persian Bidjar carpet. The range of colours is extensive and from the distinctive Persian Bidjar palette, with wonderful saturated red, blue, ochre and ivory tones, with flashes of green, employed with great care and consideration to create the best possible artistic representation, certainly a triumph in this instance, made by highly skilled weavers. The complementary red border magnificently gives balance to the overall composition with a combination of both medium sized and intricately drawn flora forms. This highly decorative Persian Bidjar carpet is a superb example displaying an excellent powerful rendition of the established and well known ‘Garus Arabesque’ design. This design is clearly well suited to large scale carpets.