9.1 x 11.2 Antique Bidjar Carpet, Calyx Design, Kurdistan Province, Northwest Persia, Circa 1910
This is a carpet that photographs do not do justice to. It is beautiful in person and in superb condition.
One could posit that no collection of antique Bidjar rugs, or Kurdish rugs in general, is complete without an example with a version of the Calyx design. Part of the problem in that sense is that the format is perhaps the least common of all designs used in the wide ranging Bidjar design repertoire. This antique Bidjar carpet is part of a relatively uncommon group of Bidjars featuring a “Calyx” design. The red background is decorated with large flowers and ancillary floral elements. There is an excellent range of color, including red, navy, coral, sky blue, mid blue, green, a brownish aubergine and light camel color.
The Oxford Dictionary defines a Calyx as “the ring of small green leaves (called sepals) that protect a flower before it opens.” The Cambridge Dictionary describes it slightly differently as “the outer part of a flower formed by the sepals (the separate outer parts), which covers and protects the petals, etc as they develop.”
A work of art (in this case furnishing fabric) in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London called “Calyx” was made in Great Britain in 1951 and has this notation: “Textile designer Lucienne Day (1917 – 2010) graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1940, but her career breakthrough came with the launch of her pioneering contemporary textile ‘Calyx’, designed for the Festival of Britain in 1951, which embodied the energy and optimism of the postwar period.”
Price: $ 24,000 Please, call Helen or Douglas at (781) 205-9817 for other information.