Rugsville Kashan Black Gold Wool Carpet 3' x 5'

The Mughal floral cartouche is one of the oldest motifs in the rug-weaving tradition. It survived because it kept giving back to whoever stood above it, century after century, room after room. This piece carries the motif in a quiet contemporary register without losing the gravity of the original. The composition holds together at any viewing distance, from the doorway to the seated reader.

Hand-spun wool on cotton. A single weaver on a single vertical loom for three months, returning to the bench every morning to add another row to the same composition. The discipline of that daily return is what gives a hand-knotted carpet its consistency and what separates it from a faster construction.

The composition

The field carries gold, weighted toward the centre and easing as it approaches the border. The vine work runs corner to corner with the slight irregularity that hand-tied knots produce. The colour will not stay still. Over the next decade the saturated tones will soften, the lighter notes will warm, and the rug will arrive at the patina that vegetable-dyed wool finds on its own. A new piece in this idiom does not arrive complete. It arrives ready to start.

What you are buying

Antique pieces in this idiom with comparable density and condition come up at international auction in a price band considerably above this listing when they appear at all. This is a new weaving in the same tradition, on the same kind of loom, at the same density, in the same fibre. The carpet appreciates with use rather than depreciating. There are very few household objects you can say that of at any price.

The piece in a room

3' x 5' (91 × 152 cm) is the accent scale: under a coffee table, in a foyer, at the foot of a bed. Use it where the floor needs a single considered note rather than a full carpeted ground. Pairs cleanly with walnut, oak, brushed brass and unbleached linen. The rug answers a quieter room with restraint and absorbs more decorated furniture without surrendering the floor to it.

Conservation

Rotate seasonally, vacuum weekly with the beater bar off, blot rather than rub when something spills. A conservator-grade wool wash every five to seven years keeps the dye fresh and the foundation clean. The rug answers slow steady care with a long working life and arrives at a patina that no new piece can imitate.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 91 × 152 cm (3' x 5')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: a single weaver, six to ten weeks
• Pile: hand-spun wool
• Origin: India

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