Yellow Anatolian Hand-Knotted Wool Sivas Rug

Half a century old and half a meter wide. This is a small Sivas village rug, knotted by hand in wool above a cotton foundation, 49 × 100 cm (1'7" × 3'3"), with Anatolian figures worked over a yellow ground. It has been owned before.

01Color, by the light

There is one of it. Yellow is unusual as a ground color in Anatolian weaving, where red and navy do most of the work, and it changes what the drawing does — dark figures on yellow read at a distance the way dark figures on red never quite do.

02Knot by knot, by hand

The composition is a full one squeezed into a small frame, with the border taking a large share of the width, which is what happens when a weaver keeps a normal pattern and reduces the loom. Wool above and cotton below, made in Türkiye, and the house dates it at about fifty years. That falls inside what dealers call semi-antique, a band running from fifty years to a hundred, and the word is a convention with no certifying body behind it.

Fifty years of use is visible: the yellow has opened where light fell on it, the pile is lower along the middle, and one end has been combed more than the other. A piece this size is used the way a mat is used, or hung, and it should be cleaned by a specialist. Hand-knotted in the Sivas region of central-eastern Türkiye. Wool pile with cotton beneath it. Yellow ground — uncommon in Anatolian weaving — with dark figures over it. Dated by the house at fifty years or so. 49 × 100 cm (1'7" × 3'3") — a doorway mat, a bedside, or a wall. Sold as pre-owned; the yellow has opened where the light reached it. Nobody issues certificates for antique, semi-antique or vintage. Cleaning through a rug specialist. Small rugs survive because nobody ever puts a sofa on them, and this one has fifty years of proof.