Guide to Antique Bakshaish Rugs, Antique Persian Rugs, Beautiful Rugs

Bakshaish rugs are made in the mountainous, northwest region of Iran, Heris County in East Azerbaijan Province. Bakhshayesh is a town in the area long renowned for its rug production and located just east of Tabriz. Bakshaish rugs are distinguished by their bold design elements, geometrical and rectilinear patterns, and even flowers and plants are often given rectilinear forms and outlines. The older Bakshaish rugs often feature the herati pattern of a stylized rosette enclosed in a diamond with stylized leaves at each corner and the open spaces between them. Allover patterns with the same design element repeated throughout the rug are also common. A distinctive feature of many Bakshaish rugs is a central medallion diamond in a clear field color that is left empty of motifs and designs, which results in a very striking, bold and stark visual impression made by its central design medallion.

Beautiful Rugs has available a Bakshaish design rug (7341) made from wool on a cotton foundation in Pakistan with a gray field with a pattern of widely space yellow and red stylized cypresses that appear paired yellow and yellow or yellow and red. Trees of life also appear throughout the field, but they are rendered with fine lines that are more difficult to discern and may blend into the rug’s field from a distance. Large geometrical flowers stand at the base of the trees, and stylized diamond florets are added inside the cypress. This rug has narrow solid border along its vertical edges and no border at its ends. This naive and charming tribal rug is appealing in its simplicity and calm atmosphere that may bring to mind to a Western art audience the art of Paul Klee.