Vintage Saharan Tuareg
This beautiful vintage Tuareg carpet of the Tuareg people, cattle-herding nomads in the Sahara desert, are some of the most exciting weavings on the market. Tuareg artisans create these carpets by binding fine straw reeds from the panicum turgidum plant with strips of camel leather. They often embellish the leather with light green and yellow pigments to enrich the pattern’s details. Tuareg nomads refer to these large mats as eseber, using them as tent screens and dividers.
Labelle Prussin, in ‘African Nomadic Architecture’ (1995), describes these mats as essential for defining an interior space where color, texture, memory, and meaning create a closed system of imagery. The designs often feature star and cross-like devices alternating with abstract geometric totemic figures, typical of African art.
Here, the pattern consists of vertical rows of polychrome embroidered leather alternating with orderly arranged rhombuses. Red, soft yellow, and green pigments embellish the embroidered motifs, contrasting against the natural color of the reeds. The rare square format and pristine condition make this carpet ideal for contemporary living rooms.