Multicolor Anatolian Handwoven Wool Kilim

A handwoven Anatolian kilim in wool, 108 × 170 cm (3'7" × 5'7"), multicolored, with the field broken into horizontal bands and a different figure running through each of them. Flatwoven in Türkiye, no pile, the same drawing on both faces.

01A line from the archive

One of one. Banded kilims are put together the way a page is: a row of figures, a narrow divider, then another row, so the eye travels down the piece instead of around a center. Colors meet each other at full saturation, since a flatweave has no way to grade one tone into the next.

02Coming off the loom

Every diagonal on it climbs in steps rather than running smooth, one weft at a time, and that constraint is the frame inside which the whole vocabulary of Anatolian geometry was built. Wool warp, wool weft, woven by hand.

03A question of size

A kilim this size is thin and light, and on a bare floor it will travel unless something with grip goes under it. The lightness is also the advantage: it can be picked up with one hand, taken outside and shaken, thrown over a bench or hung on a wall, none of which is true of a knotted rug the same size.

04At the loom in in Anatolia

Professional washing when it needs it. Handwoven in wool in Türkiye; flatwoven, with no pile. Multicolored, the field divided into bands of stepped Anatolian figures. 108 × 170 cm (3'7" × 5'7"). Reversible — the drawing shows on both sides. Light and thin; on a hard floor it wants something with grip underneath. Professional washing when it needs it. A single piece. A banded kilim is the plainest thing a loom can be asked to do, which is roughly why the drawing has never gone out of use.