Antique Qashqai Rugs
Pile rugs, kilims and small woven bags from the Qashqai tribes of Fars province in south-west Persia, made first for tent, floor and pack animal, later for sale.
Antique Qashqai Rugs
The Qashqai are a Turkic-speaking tribal confederacy of Fars province, in south-west Iran. They wove for their own use: floor rugs, bedding and tent bags, saddlebags, salt bags. Weaving for outside markets grew through the later 19th and early 20th centuries, and that is the point at which most of what reaches the market was made.
The form you'll meet most often is a pile rug of roughly 1.5 to 2.6 metres long by 1 to 1.7 metres wide. Of 199 listings on Sellingantiques, 130 are titled rug and only 22 say carpet, so room-size pieces are the exception. Titles place them in south west Persia or Fars province, and a third call them tribal.
Beyond the pile rugs, kilims and flatweaves account for around one in ten listings, taking in the sofreh eating cloth. Bags make up a similar share: bag faces, khorjin saddlebags, salt bags, the small chanteh pouch. The smallest sampled piece is a chanteh of 17 by 19 centimetres; the largest are carpets around 308cm long, with one Luri kelleh at 358cm.
Dating runs from 1850 to 1940, with 183 listings carrying a clean year. The 1900s is the busiest decade at 58 listings, the 1880s next at 34, so the weight sits either side of 1900. Titles often name a sub-tribe, Kashkuli, Shekarlu, Darrehshuri or Bolvardi, or a neighbouring group such as Khamseh or Luri, alongside or instead of Qashqai.
Where The Range Splits
Attribution does a lot of the work. Rugs named to a sub-tribe sit higher than those left simply as Qashqai, and Kashkuli and Shekarlu lead that group, named in 19 and 12 titles. Design complexity pulls the same way: triple-medallion layouts, named in eight titles, cluster in the upper half, and millefleurs, herati lattice and animal-filled drawing recur among them.
Weave and materials separate the top from the middle. Phrases like very fine weave, extremely fine and soft wool appear at the upper end and nowhere else. Silk wefting turns up twice across the whole sample, once in a rug and once in a bag face, and both sit near the top. Ground colour matters too, with green, ivory and indigo grounds singled out in titles.
Date and form set the floor. Pieces titled mid-19th century, third or fourth quarter 19th century, or circa 1860 to 1880 sit high, while 1920s and 1930s weavings gather at the lower end. A complete khorjin with its backs stands well above a bag face cut from one, and bag faces and chanteh occupy the bottom of the range.
Antique Qashqai Rugs Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for qashqai rugs, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
About twenty-two antique Qashqai rugs are listed on Sellingantiques each year, from twenty-two dealers - roughly one a dealer a year.
The Antique Qashqai Rugs Glossary
- Qashqai
- The tribal confederacy of Fars province, and spelt several ways across listings: Qashqa'i, Kashgai, Qasgai.
- Kashkuli
- A Qashqai sub-tribe, named separately in 19 titles, whose rugs are known for a finer weave.
- Shekarlu
- Another Qashqai sub-tribe, in 12 titles. The word is also used of a distinctive border type.
- Khamseh
- A separate Fars confederacy, named alongside or instead of Qashqai in 15 titles.
- Khorjin
- A pair of joined saddlebags, sometimes offered complete with the plain-weave backs still attached.
- Boteh
- The teardrop or paisley motif, used as an all-over repeat or drawn large across the field.
Antique Qashqai Rugs: Frequently Asked Questions
How big are Qashqai rugs usually?
Most sampled pieces fall between about 1.4 and 2.6 metres long by 0.9 to 1.7 metres wide. That is a rug rather than a carpet, and the titles agree: 130 of 199 say rug.
Larger pieces exist but are the exception. The biggest sampled are a Khamseh carpet at 308 by 232cm and a Qashqai main carpet at 308 by 188cm, with a Luri kelleh reaching 358cm in length.
What period do these date from?
The dated field runs from 1850 to 1940, with a single listing at each extreme. Nothing earlier than the mid 19th century appears.
The 1900s and 1880s dominate, followed by the 1920s and 1890s. Fourteen listings are dated no more precisely than 19th Century, and the titles behind those try harder, offering third quarter, fourth quarter, mid 19th century or circa 1860s.
Why do listings name a sub-tribe?
Qashqai weaving is unusually specific about who made it. Kashkuli appears in 19 titles and Shekarlu in 12, with Darrehshuri, Bolvardi and Ard Kapan named in the samples.
The naming carries weight in the market. Sub-tribe pieces cluster in the upper part of the range, and several of the highest-placed rugs are Shekarlu or Kashkuli.
Are kilims part of this category?
Yes. Kilim appears in 19 titles, roughly one listing in ten, covering flatwoven pileless weaving from the same region.
The group takes in the sofreh, a flatwoven eating cloth, and a lion kilim turns up among the samples.
What are bag faces and khorjin?
A bag face is the decorated front panel of a woven bag, cut or kept apart from its plain-weave back. A khorjin is a pair of joined saddlebags, sometimes offered complete with the backs.
Bags account for around one listing in ten, and the range within them is wide. Bag faces and the small chanteh pouch sit at the bottom of the sampled range, while complete khorjin sit far higher.
Do unusual designs turn up in this category?
They do, though singly. One rug depicts the pillars of Persepolis, the only architectural subject in the archive.
Figural work otherwise runs to peacocks, chickens, birds and a lion. One-off forms include a baby cradle, a horse blanket cover, a moj, a spindle and water-pipe bag, and a millefleurs prayer rug.