East Persian Baluch Rug, ca. 1880
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GUEST:
My grandparents were Methodist missionaries, and they were in India. And they had five children. The oldest one was Aunt Dody, the youngest one was my dad, and at some point in time, she went to Afghanistan and bought this rug.
APPRAISER:
When would that have been?
GUEST:
I'm guessing probably somewhere in the '20s I think she probably purchased it.
APPRAISER:
It's a Baluch rug. And by analyzing the knots, and which way the knot opens-- and in this case the knot opens to the left-- we can narrow it down to a group of rugs that was actually made around Birjand. What really excited me about this rug was the design. These large-scale birds are something you don't normally see in a rug. You see them in saddle bags, but you don't normally see them in a rug. I would guess that the age of this is about 1880. So it would have been about 40 years old when she bought it.
GUEST:
When she bought it, yeah.
APPRAISER:
And to find it on a red background is also wonderful because the majority of the times that we see this design, it's on a navy blue background, and it really doesn't show up the same way. It's overall in good condition. It has a patch that's been inlaid here.
GUEST:
Oh, I didn't notice that.
APPRAISER:
It still retains its original selvage, but it has this patch.
GUEST:
Yep.
APPRAISER:
And it also has some areas of wear.
GUEST:
Yeah, the rocking chair was on it (laughs).
APPRAISER:
Exactly. This is a real collectible rug. And the people that are interested in this rug and collect these rugs, they see past any condition issues if it has real rarity. I think it would easily retail in the $7,000 range.
GUEST:
Wow. Very nice.
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