Vintage Beni Ouarain Berber Rug
The Beni Ouarain confederation is composed of seventeen tribes inhabiting the high mountain region of the northeastern Middle Atlas. Their rugs differ from other Berber weavings in that they are woven almost exclusively on an ivory background and decorated with abstract geometric motifs in undyed natural brown/black wool. The pattern is typically composed of an all-over grid of lozenges with little or no variation.
This dated vintage example, which comes in a very rare small format, is characterised by a neat honeycomb arrangement of diamonds, creating a network of empty lozenges. Authentic old Beni Ouarain rugs such as this one are very quickly disappearing from the villages where they have been sourced for decades, and are entirely different from the plethora of later Berber weavings which have been flooding the market in recent years.