Some kilims bear, in watermark, the entire vocabulary of a woman's life. On this one, woven in Denizli about 60 years ago, three large grey hexagons interlink along a red column, each encircled by a vibrant saffron yellow and containing a midnight blue and white diamond at its heart, like three stages of the same journey. At the very bottom, two yellow combs echo each other, an ancient symbol of femininity and the home that the weaver slipped into her kilim like a discreet signature.
In the red background, small grey silhouettes settle like birds on tree branches, a motif rooted in an ancient Anatolian belief that the hand that plants a tree receives in return the prayers of the birds that will come to perch there. On each side, two columns of medallions encircled in red and yellow complete the composition on its 170 x 138 cm. A kilim woven like a silent prayer, where each symbol invokes protection, and which seems to have been waiting for sixty years to continue watching over a home.
