Pile salt bag
Ever since I started collecting and studying Kurdish rugs, which happened at the very beginning of my rug career, I was especially enamoured with Jaf tribal weavings. What I particularly admired was their ability to create so many interesting variations around the same theme, much like the greatest jazz music improvisers. Here the hooked lozenges within diamonds are crisply drawn, arranged chromatically in a honeycomb matrix without any repetition, with only the side diamonds containing an identical series of concentric lozenges. The neck of the salt bag is perfectly proportioned with respect to the main body, especially as they are woven in separate sections. The arrangement of colour together with the perfect scale of the pattern confers a great sense of balance and serenity to the weaving. This is also achieved through the use of very soft and silky wool, a relatively high knot count (about 50 kpsi) and the use of nine different, fully saturated colours. Last, but not least, the perfect preservation of the piece, which includes a finely woven and tastefully coloured striped back, allows us to place this salt bag as the best of type for the group.