Zeikhur Small Rug, Kuba District, Northeast Caucasus, last quarter 19th century
2 ft. 8 in. x 2 ft. 5 in.

Provenance: Sotheby's New York, 15 December 2000, Lot 2.

Exhibitions: Ralph & Linda Kaffel, Seattle, Washington, American Conference on Oriental Rugs 7: ?Cedar Chest? Session, March 2004.

Other Notes: [Cedar Chest caption]
An uncommon example of a north Caucasian mat (described as a bagface in the Sotheby catalog), with an intricate pattern which is actually a complex lattice. The linked floral border is typical of Zeikhur, and is used as both major and guard borders. There is an extremely closely related small rug with this identical field pattern and border in the Al Mazzie collection in San Francisco (this rug was exhibited at the ACOR session for comparison purposes), while another rug with an identical field but multiple borders was offered at Sotheby?s London on 4/21/99, #116.

[Ralph's commentary] An older fragment with this design but with more intense colors was exhibited during a ?Show & Tell? session by Harold Keshishian at a Textile Museum Rug Morning in April 2009.
This design is presumed by some collectors to have been created for the European market, but I have a different theory. I see this pattern as a Zeikhur variant of the more familiar Bidjar ?rising pattern?.
Analogies include SNY 30 October 1981 #115 (attributed to Bidjar); PLO 16 October 2001 #78 and SLO 21 April 99 #116.