Bakhtiari Rugs

(Posted on 26/02/18)

Bakhtiari Rugs are woven in the province of Chahar Mahal-and-Bakhtiari located in west central Iran. These rugs are mainly woven by villagers and to a lesser extent nomad of the area. Bakhtiari style, like most Persian styles, is copied by other areas of Iran as well as other countries such as India, China and Pakistan.

The pattern of Bakhtiari rugs tends to be mostly geometric, sometimes semi-geometric, and seldom curvilinear. What distinguishes Bakhtiari rugs from other rugs is that they are colourful and bright; their design also tends to be very crowded. The commonly used colours include deep reds, bright blues, navy, green, brown, ocher, and beige. The most common Bakhtiari design is a panelled garden design which consists of square, rectangular, diamond, or hexagon compartments filled with a floral motif such as a willow tree, a cypress tree, a bush, a grapevine, a vase containing flowers, or a bird sitting on a branch. Sometimes one motif repeats in several compartments; other times a motif is only seen in one compartment. Every compartment has a different motif and colour from its neighbouring compartments. It is possible to see the above motifs in all-over layouts without the panels as well. In addition to the famous panelled design, large medallions resembling Heriz medallions, vase, all-over boteh, and tree-of-life can also be found in Bakhtiari rugs. Runners especially with vertical stripes of small boteh are common as well.

Bakhtiari rugs are mostly woven with the symmetric (Turkish) knot although in Shahr-e-Kurd, the capital city of the Chahar Mahal and Bakhtiari province, weavers use the asymmetric (Persian) knot. Even though Bakhtiari rugs are usually marketed under Bakhtiari, sometimes they may be sold under the specific village name where they are woven such as Chahal Shotur, Saman, or Farah Dumbah. The very fine-knotted Bakhtiari rugs are sometimes referred to as Bibibaffs, which means "woven by a woman" in Persian.