Rugsville Agra Black Gold Wool Carpet 9' x 12'

Agra carpets occupy a particular place in the textile record. The imperial workshops, founded under Mughal patronage in the late sixteenth century, produced the floor pieces that lined the audience halls of the early Mughal court, and they continued in private workshops well into the British colonial period. The Agra style is recognisable for its dense floral tendrils, angular vine work, and a star-and-medallion structure that holds the field together at room scale rather than fragmenting it.

Three weavers shared the loom for roughly six months on a vertical Indian loom to bring this carpet through. The wool is hand-spun and laid on a cotton foundation, knotted with the asymmetric knot that the Agra workshops favoured for the slightly tighter resolution it gives floral motifs. The dyes are vegetable, drawn from walnut hull, indigo, oak gall, and a small percentage of madder for the gold accents. Each dye batch was matured for two to three weeks in copper vats before the wool was lowered.

The composition

A deep black ground, with floral medallions and vine work in soft gold, ivory, and accent rust. The pattern is dense rather than open, in keeping with the imperial Agra tradition, with the borders carrying their own internal repeats so the eye finds new pattern at every scale of inspection. Black grounds are the hardest to land cleanly in vegetable dye because the pigment must be built up in walnut and indigo layers; this carpet shows that depth in the way light falls across the pile rather than reflecting flat.

What you are buying

Authentic Agra-tradition carpets of this scale and density move through Christie's, Sotheby's, and the European specialist trade at $15,000 to $35,000 when offered in good condition, and the supply has tightened sharply over the past decade. The carpet here is a contemporary weaving in the same lineage, on the same kind of loom, in the same fibre, with the same vegetable dye chemistry. The rug appreciates with use rather than depreciating, and the gold accents will warm toward bronze over the next twenty years as the madder mellows.

The piece in a room

9' x 12' (274 x 366 cm) is the canonical drawing-room scale and the size at which Agra carpets were originally designed to be read. The piece expects an eight or ten seat dining table or a full sectional sofa above it, with the rug as the work the room is arranged around rather than as flooring underneath the furniture. The black ground deepens shadow play in evening lamp light. Mid-tone walls hold the gold accents; pure white walls flatten them.

Conservation

Rotate a half turn each spring and autumn so light and traffic age the carpet evenly. Vacuum weekly on suction only, beater bar disengaged. Blot spills immediately with cold water on a clean cotton cloth; never rub. Hand wash by a wool-trained conservator every five years. With this care, the carpet runs eighty years of household use and outlives its first owners as a conservable object.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 274 x 366 cm (9' x 12')
• Construction: Agra-tradition asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3 weavers, around 6 months
• Pile: 10 mm hand-spun wool
• Dye: vegetable, walnut and indigo base with madder accents
• Origin: India

Free shipping anywhere in India. Cash on delivery offered. 7-day exchange from receipt. The carpet arrives crated for safe storage and re-use during any future relocation.