Rabat Village Women More Carpets

77202, Tribal style vintage Rabat Moroccan area rug, oversize rug, palace size carpet. This hand knotted wool vintage Rabat Moroccan rug features a four-and-one medallion design spread across a bright pumpkin field. The larger hooked diamond-shaped center medallion contains a superimposed stepped lozenge with a tree of life motif, while corresponding stepped lozenges in the corners feature Ashik güls with diamond centers. Additional columns of diamonds appear between the medallions, echoing the main border’s design. A simple running water border offsets the diagonally striped main border with outlined diamonds. Solid color narrow borders, known as listels, separate the primary borders. Woven in the Moroccan capital of Rabat, these rugs can be found in the homes of Moroccan elite. Unlike most other Moroccan rugs, Rabat city rugs exhibit Anatolian designs and influence, though it is unclear how these designs came to Morocco many centuries ago. According to Indianapolis Museum of Arts’ “The Fabric of Moroccan Life,” the women weavers of Rabat tell a legend that one day “a stork dropped into the courtyard of a house a piece of rug… whose colors and design were hitherto unknown in the land… the women weavers of the house saw it as a gift from heaven, a talisman, and a good omen, and so were inspired by it.” The people of Rabat consider wool to be as precious as gold and a variety of rituals surround the making of their rugs. They are known to be able to create bright and saturated poly-chromatic color schemes with a narrow palette. This sophisticated vintage Rabat rug...