Antique Wool on wool rug. Handmade wool on cotton Persian rug, cleaned and in excellent condition. 
Bijar (Bidjar) is a city in Northwestern Iran. The town of Bijar (Bidjar) and the surrounding countryside are populated mainly by Kurdish people, whose artistic sense and culture is manifested in the region’s grand antique carpets. Indeed, Bijar (Bidjar) is the center of a major weaving area in Iran and a place to find superbly crafted rugs. Spontaneous, asymmetric antique tribal carpets were woven at the family level throughout the surrounding countryside. The finest of the area rugs crafted in Bijar (Bidjar) are being called “Halvai.” Bijar (Bidjar) carpets are world renowned for their superb artistry, craftsmanship, and excellent material, and can be distinguished by their heavy wool foundation (cotton in twentieth-century carpets). Indeed, antique Persian Bijar (Bidjar) area rugs are known for their stiff, heavy foundation giving them the title “the iron rugs of Persia,”. The Persian and Kurdish rug weavers tied each row of knots and added an extra weft and literally pounded down the knots to withstand up to 200 years of heavy use. 
The region’s weavers have transformed many classic antique carpet designs with their own interpretations. “Mina khani” and “Herati” Persian carpet designs (both highly detailed, overall repeats) and a diamond-shaped medallion were frequently used. The smaller, and at the other end of the spectrum – the very large traditional Bijar (Bidjar) area rugs have a design with allover flower and vinery motifs. Two particularly rare and prized carpet designs are “Garrus” and “Guli Farang.” The Garrus design usually employs a cobalt to midnight indigo blue field and a distinctive large scale all-over pattern of split-arabesques and blossoming vinery in the field, along with a ribbon-like, serpentine and cloud band repeat in the main border.The Guli Farang Bijar (Bidjar) rea rug, translated as “Foreign Flower” has an antique all-over repeat, that many believe to be a stylized depiction of cabbage blossoms or an English formal garden. In pieces woven before 1900, this motif usually is performed against a dark blue or ivory ground.
The diverse antique Bijar (Bidjar) rug color palette, from soft to emerald greens, a full range of blues and yellows to fiery rich red, tomato or deep terra cotta, demonstrates the great skill of its dyers.The examples woven by Kurdish women in the small surrounding villages display an exceptional level of spontaneity. Known as Kurdish Bijar to differentiate them from the more finely woven and formal “Bijar” (Bidjar) style, the best examples use strong abrash, or tonal changes within one color shade, and sometimes radical changes in design. They have the same superb wool and color range as the more finely woven city Bijars (Bidjar).
Many of the best antique Bijar (Bidjar) rugs, especially the largest antique carpets, have been commissioned by Western people and Persian aristocrat families for the last several hundred years and are highly respected by collectors and rug enthusiasts for the uniqueness of the Bidjar rugs, strength of construction and great decorative impact.