Until recently bags with this cruciform pattern were considered very rare, and only one example had been published. Then they began to turn up occasionally, and at the recent auction where I bought the preceding double gabbeh there were a handful of fine versions, all attributed to the Luri 'Boyer Ahmadi' tribe. The knowledgeable American dealer from who I bought this bag had his own theory. It may have been woven, he said, as a Khan production piece, or perhaps woven by a tribal woman in an urban environment, where she had been employed for seasonal work. In any event, it is very densely and finely woven, with a deeply depressed warp. The unresolved crosses on the left suggest that whether or not the bag was made in a town or village, it is definitely not far from its tribal sources. It measures 11" by 11.5".
