There are kilims that resemble miniature palace tapestries, so much does their composition command respect at first glance. This one, woven in Aydin some 75 years ago, unfolds a rare architecture of superimposed horizontal bands, each a world unto itself, ivory scattered with winged medallions, dense coral carrying two twin hexagons, pearl grey constellation with tiny diamonds, in a play of alternation that demands a mastery few weavers ever reached. Three large central panels, almost identical but never quite, answer one another from top to bottom like the stanzas of the same poem woven across several seasons.
The deep reds and ochres of this kilim do not have the regularity of an industrial dye, they oscillate, darken then lighten from one band to the next, that abrash which signs a wool prepared in small quantities, bath by bath, by hand, in entirely vegetable dyes. Across its 300 x 196 cm (9'10" × 6'5"), a scale one rarely encounters in vintage kilims of this quality, this piece commands a near-monumental presence, one of those that never leaves anyone indifferent.
