Description of Design and History
The old respected name of Senneh is synonymous with valuable Oriental carpets. Thus the Persian knot is also known as the Senneh knot even though it is hardly used here. Today this town, which was proclaimed the capital of the Kurds by Shah Nadir in the 18th century and is famous throughout the carpet world, is known as Sanandaj. Senneh and Bijar are both major Kurdish centres in which no authentically Kurdish carpets were woven. It is probably true that in Senneh some of the finest knotted carpets of old Persia were woven and the weaving tradition was preserved for centuries. This applies not only to fineness of weave and special weaving techniques, but also to the development of the designs and interpretation of patterns and ornaments borrowed from many other carpet weaving areas and cultures, as for example the Herati pattern or the perennial boteh symbol, amongst others. Senneh products stand at the pinnacle of Persian carpet art because of the precision of drawing and of knotting, the range and harmony of their colours and the artistic composition of the designs in the field, corners and borders. This excellent Senneh although knotted on a cotton rather than silk foundation weave, this extremely fine Senneh with Camel Hair Colour background, with its exquisite patterning and distinctive open field proportions, represents the best type of the town’s period weavings, from which few acceptably preserved items of aesthetic merit have survived. The four point pastel blue centre medallion is covered with beautiful dark blue Herati elements, decorated with artistic two human faces. The massive proportions of the corner pieces are admirably judged to counterbalance the scale of the medallion, while continuing the focal ornaments design and colouring. The main border decorated with Herati design is in between two mirror borders and an extra slender border which has calligraphy of Persian words (Mobarak Bad) meaning congratulations. This excellent piece was woven by a young girl who dreamt of getting married, and that is also one of the reasons for the human faces in the rug which wishes congratulations to her. Interesting are the mirror borders which are different and decorated in different flowers, to give extra beauty to this lovely piece. This exquisite rug has a pile clipped to paper thin fragility, with the knotting as fine as the Senneh workshops could achieve.