Vintage Qashqai gabbeh rug from Iran. 197x116 cms

A very unusual vintage Qashqai gabbeh rug, likely woven with undyed natural camel wool. The rich color suggests the use of camel wool, and the weaver even included some camels in the design. Charming nomadic scenes are depicted, such as a female camel herder—a delightful, naive, and full-of-charm motif. The field is otherwise empty, making this a minimalist piece of tribal art.

Like most gabbeh rugs, this piece is coarsely woven with a thick pile. Some small areas show minor pile loss,

Material: 100% hand-spun sheep and camel wool

Size: 197×116 cms

Origin: Qashqai tribe, Iran

Date of weaving: 1970s

Traditionally a sleeping rug, a gabbeh is a hand-woven pile rug of coarse quality characterized by an abstract design that relies upon open fields of color and a playfulness with geometry. This type of rug is popular among the populations of the Zagros Mountains of Iran, including Kurdish, Luri and Qashqai people.The gabbeh is usually woven by women.

Gabbeh carpets are much thicker and coarser than other Persian carpets; sometimes they can be as much as one inch or 2.5 cm in depth. In fact, they are more a variety of kilim than carpet. The word “gabbeh” comes from the Persian گبه, meaning raw, natural, uncut. This is a rough and primitive carpet.

Gabbeh patterns are of a very basic kind with only a limited number of decorative, mostly rectangular objects, animals and vegetable motives. In a gabbeh usually bright colors, such as yellow and red, are used. Often undyed natural wool is used (brown, beige, black, white etc.). Although large fields of solid color are used in gabbeh designs, the color is variegated (the color varies throughout the rug, with the appearance of differently colored zones).