KHOTAN RUG

floor covering handwoven in or about the ancient city of Khotan (Ho-t'ien) in southern Sinkiang (Chinese Turkistan). Khotan rugs were once called Samarkand rugs after the Central Asian trading centre. They combine Chinese details with Central Asian design schemes and Western vivid colouring, except where recent fugitive dyes have reduced their effect to washed-out pastels. The technique of all-silk Khotan rugs, some of which have areas of metal-thread brocading, has been influenced to some degree by the earlier Polish carpets of Persia, but the decoration generally consists of lattice designs bearing clusters of rosettes. Similar designs have been used for woollen carpets, together with triple-medallion schemes in blue on red, pomegranate vines that grow from little vases, or perhaps coffered patterns showing chrysanthemum heads locked into squares. The borders may have Chinese wave and fret patterns or flowering vines. Saffs, multiple prayer rugs for the use of a group, have been woven in wool and in silk. Similar rugs with one or more rows of prayer-niche designs have also been made in earlier times at Usak, in Mughal India, and even among the Ersaris. Khotan rugs with woollen pile have cotton warp and mixed-colour wool or cotton weft and are usually made with the Senna (Sehna) knot. Field colours may be blue, yellow, or white, as well as the usual red. Hues now very much faded were regarded as shocking when new, especially one aniline red violet.