Antique Caucasian Long Rug, circa 1880

A highly decorative antique West Caucasian Kurdish rug in good condition with soft even medium pile from late 19th century with great visual interest. The rug features two narrow elongated lozenge-shaped red panels with another narrow rectangular teal green panel in between, each filled with motifs of eight-pointed stars and ram’s horns in blue, red, white and yellow. The panels are the focal points of the rug and take up almost all of the space in the dark indigo field finished at both ends by a series of dragon and crab beetle motifs in red, blue and teal.

The main border in white features crab beetle motifs with inner and outer guard strips filled with multicolored floral heads. Notice the motifs of eyes, wheels of life, 's' and ram’s horns further filling the main field in a profusion of symbolic expression that creates immense visual interest.

The rug has a gorgeous palette of strong saturated colors including teal green, cream, dark indigo, scarlet red, yellow and lapis blue, most of which were amplified as background colors as well.