Rugsville Antique Persian Vegetable dyes Wool Carpet 9' x 12'

Antique Persian as a category covers four centuries of weaving from the Safavid court carpets to the late Qajar village pieces, but the carpets that reached Western collectors in volume were the soft-coloured floral fields from the second half of the nineteenth century. Those were the rugs that the Liberty showrooms sold under glass, and they are the rugs that taught Anglo-American interiors what a Persian carpet looked like. This piece is a contemporary weaving in that softer Persian register, with a continuous floral field rather than a centred medallion.

Four weavers worked the vertical loom for close to six months. The pile is hand-spun New Zealand wool on cotton foundation, tied in Persian asymmetric knots row by row. The dye lots were drawn from madder, indigo, walnut, oak gall, and pomegranate, each matured in copper for two to three weeks. After clipping, four days of sun and a long mineral wash mellowed the saturation toward an antique register that reads as already lived with.

The composition

A floral field with palmette, rosette, and vine drawn in the soft tonal range of late-nineteenth-century Persian work. The grounds shift between cream, pale madder, and pomegranate rose, with deeper indigo and walnut as outline. The colour is held in tonal proximity rather than in sharp contrast, the way a watercolour painter washes wet on wet. The border is a triple band held in the same restrained register so it frames without competing.

What you are buying

Antique Persian carpets at this scale and palette carry estimates of thirty-five to seventy-five thousand US dollars at international auction. This is a new weaving in the same lineage, on the same vertical loom, in the same fibre, to the same density. The rug appreciates with use rather than depreciating, which is the property no other floor object holds at any price.

The piece in a room

9' x 12' (274 x 366 cm) anchors a primary drawing room or dining room. The soft palette pairs with chalk walls, washed oak, brushed brass, raw linen, and unframed canvas. The rug calibrates to the architecture rather than competing with it.

Conservation

Rotate the rug a half turn each spring and autumn. Vacuum weekly, suction only. Blot spills at once with cotton, never rub. Schedule a hand-wash by a wool conservator every six to seven years. With this care the piece crosses a century.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted New Zealand wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 274 x 366 cm (9' x 12')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 4 weavers, ~6 months
• Pile: hand-spun wool
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, walnut, oak gall, pomegranate)
• Origin: India

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