Shajar Maliky One-OF-A-Kind-Afghan Rug

The Tree of Life is one of the oldest motifs in human visual culture — a symbol of connection between earth and sky, present in the art of civilisations that never knew each other. In Afghan kilim work, it takes a form that is at once ancient and entirely specific: a large flowering vase at the base, from which a central tree rises through a cream field, its branches carrying birds, smaller flowering forms, and the kind of living detail that only comes from a weaver who understood the image as something more than decoration.

This piece adds to it an extraordinary animal procession running across the top and bottom borders — camels, horses, running deer — a narrative wrapped around a cosmology. Flat-woven in Herat by Turkmen craftspeople, wholly wool. Among the most singular kilims in the collection.