Multicolor Anatolian Handwoven Wool Cicim Kilim

At 206 × 312 cm (6'9" × 10'3") this is a whole salon floor in one handwoven wool cicim kilim, multicolored, made in Türkiye and kept folded away rather than walked on. Cicim is a flatweave with extra threads laid in above the ground weave, so the motifs stand slightly raised and catch a shadow along their edges. The pattern runs in bands across the width, and the color is listed simply as rengarenk — multicolored — because there is no dominant tone to name.

01Which tone on the ground

Reds, greens and creams alternate in blocks that were never reconciled into a scheme, which is usually what happens when the yarn to hand decides the palette rather than a drawing. The raised motifs sit inside those bands and take light from the side, so the kilim looks different from the two ends of the room. Handwoven in Türkiye, wool throughout, and stored rather than used — in Turkish that is a sandık eskisi, literally chest-old: woven, put into the dowry chest, and taken out decades later with the colors still where the weaver left them.

The trade-off is real and worth stating. A kilim that was never underfoot has none of the softening that use gives; this one is firm and a little stiff, and it will take a season of walking before it lies quite flat. Woven by hand in Anatolia, in wool, using cicim. Supplementary pattern threads laid over a flat ground; no pile. Banded multicolored composition — red, green and cream, none of them leading. Chest-kept rather than floor-used, which is why the colors are undimmed. 206 × 312 cm (6'9" × 10'3"): the largest piece in this group, sized for a full living room. Firm and flat; it wants a pad under it on a hard floor. Cleaning by a kilim washer. A single piece, with no second like it. A kilim this size was somebody's whole winter at the loom, and it has spent every year since waiting for a floor.