637 - Bukhara oriental rug, Pakistan, red field with five Tekke guls and hooked borders, wool on wool

Bukhara oriental rug, Pakistan, red field with five Tekke guls and hooked borders, wool on wool Wool on wool, Bukhara oriental rug, Pakistan. Red field with a row of five Tekke-style guls with ivory hooked outlines, halved guls at the sides, small secondary guls in between. Several narrow borders with hooked motifs in dark brown, light red and red, wide end panels with lozenge lattice at both ends. Ivory fringes. Good used condition. 166x91 cm (LxW). The name Bukhara goes back to the city of the same name on the Silk Road, through which Turkmen rugs were traded for centuries. A Bukhara rug is characterised by guls set in rows, the octagonal tribal emblems of the Turkmen weavers, on a red ground. Among the Turkmen tribal patterns, the Tekke gul is regarded as rounder and more compact than the more angular Salor gul. The geometric hooked borders and the wide end panels at the short sides are a fixed part of the layout of these rugs. Today rugs in the Bukhara style are also knotted in Pakistan; the historic centre of weaving there is Lahore, the export trading centre Karachi.