Rugsville Vegetable dyes Classic Styles Wool 6' x 9'

The vegetable-dyed Sultanabad tradition holds a particular place in the history of the carpet trade because it is the line that taught the West how to live with Persian weaving. By the 1880s, dealers in central Iran had pushed weavers to open up the dense, busy fields of classical court work into the airy ivory grounds and loose vine repeats that drawing rooms in London and New York wanted. The Classic Styles Vegetable Dyes carpet in front of you carries that lineage into a contemporary Indian workshop.

Roughly four months at the loom for two to three weavers, working from an open cartoon drawn in graphite and corrected in ink. New Zealand wool was lowered into copper vats of madder root, indigo, oak gall, and walnut hull that had matured for two to three weeks before each immersion. Around one and a half million Persian-asymmetric knots make up the field.

The composition

An ivory ground carries a loose vine repeat in soft rust, walnut, and dropped indigo. There is no central medallion, no insistent border, just an even distribution of botanical drawing across the entire field. Vegetable colour does not stay still. Over a decade the ivory warms to bone, the rust softens to terracotta, and the indigo deepens at the guard bands. A vegetable Sultanabad arrives ready to begin its life rather than finished on the day of delivery.

What you are buying

Pre-1920 Sultanabads at this size with comparable colour and condition trade at the major auction houses for twenty to forty thousand US dollars when they appear at all. This is a new weaving on the same kind of loom, in the same fibre, to the same dye protocol. The carpet appreciates with use rather than depreciating, which is a property no machine-made or chemical-dyed alternative can offer.

The piece in a room

6' x 9' (183 x 274 cm) settles into a primary seating area or a six-seat dining set. The ivory field opens up small flats and apartments without claiming the room. Cream walls and oak floors hold the palette in balance. Brass, walnut, and undyed linen all read cleanly above the rug.

Conservation

Vacuum weekly, suction only. Rotate end-to-end at the change of seasons. Blot spills with a clean cotton cloth, never rub. A wool conservator should hand-wash the carpet every five to seven years. With these habits the rug runs eighty to one hundred years.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted New Zealand wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 183 x 274 cm (6' x 9')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 2-3 weavers, around 4 months
• Pile: 9 mm
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, oak gall, walnut hull)
• Origin: India

Free shipping across India. Cash on delivery available. Seven-day exchange. Ships in a re-usable crate suitable for storage.