Seychour
276 x 96 cm (9' 1" x 3' 2")
Caucasus, mid 19th century
Condition: very good according to age, scattered low pile, partially corroded brown, scattered small repairs
Warp: wool, weft: wool, pile: wool

A vase-design Seychour rug, with a more abstract design, was published by Mike Tschebull in Qarajeh to Quba (London, 2019) and is dated 1277 AH/1860 CE.
Examples from this small group of long rugs usually show three vases, out of which grow groups of red and green flowers, always contained within the white-and-blue running-dog border that is so closely associated with rugs from
northeast Caucasus.
The origin of the design has been variously traced to the influence of printed cottons distributed throughout the region by the British East India company, cottons either imported from India or produced in Britain itself, or (as Ian Bennett suggests) it can be traced to the remaining influence of Safavid carpet design and in particular the 16th- and 17th-century vase carpets from Kerman.
The great variety of natural dyes, in comparison with the previously cited example, helps us to date this rug to the mid-19th century. That this rug was woven in a village setting is made clear by the odd addition of another pattern at the top of the field, totally disconnected from the rest of the rug design - a pattern that normally would be found in the border of another type of rug from the Kuba district.