Rugsville Classic Floral Sultanabad Vegetable dyes Wool Carpet 10' x 14'

By the late nineteenth century the workshops of central Iran were producing the carpets that defined the formal interiors of London, New York, and Boston. A Swiss firm called Ziegler and Co. had set up a buying office and was commissioning weavers to soften the dense floral repeats of classical Persia into the open, airy fields the new western collectors preferred. The Sultanabad pattern that emerged from those commissions is one of the most influential designs in carpet history, and the floral piece in front of you is a direct descendant of that lineage.

Three to four weavers shared the loom for roughly seven months on this 10' x 14' (305 x 427 cm) field. The pile is hand-spun wool, dyed with botanical preparations of madder root, indigo, oak gall, and walnut hull. Each colour was matured for two to three weeks in copper vats before the wool was lowered. The foundation is cotton, warped on a vertical beam, and the knotting was done by hand against the warp using the Persian asymmetric tie.

The composition

An open beige ground carries scrolling vine work and large palmettes in faded indigo, soft rust, and old gold. The borders are restrained, a single deep guard band rather than the layered frames that turn lesser Sultanabads busy. Vegetable dyes do not stay still. Across the next decade the rust will lighten, the indigos will deepen, and the beige will warm into bone. A vegetable-dyed Sultanabad does not arrive complete. It arrives ready to begin its working life.

What you are buying

Antique Sultanabads of comparable scale, condition, and palette sell through the major Western auction houses at attribution prices in the range of thirty to sixty thousand US dollars when they appear at all. This is a new weaving in the same tradition, on the same kind of loom, in the same fibre, to comparable density. Hand-knotted wool with vegetable dye on a cotton foundation appreciates with use rather than depreciating. There is no other floor object with that property.

The piece in a room

10' x 14' (305 x 427 cm) is the canonical formal scale. The piece expects a generous sofa configuration or a long dining table on the field rather than as flooring beneath separate furniture. Mid-tone or cream walls hold the saturation. The carpet pairs with walnut, brass, oil paintings, and either restrained period furniture or considered modern work.

Conservation

Rotate the rug a half turn each spring and autumn so light and traffic age the piece evenly. Vacuum weekly with suction only and the beater bar disengaged. Blot any spill with a clean cotton cloth, never rub. Hand-wash by a wool-trained conservator every five years. With this care the carpet runs eighty to a hundred years and outlives its first owners.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 305 x 427 cm (10' x 14')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3 to 4 weavers, ~7 months
• Pile: 8 to 12 mm, hand-spun wool
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, oak gall, walnut hull)
• Origin: India

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