Rugsville Kashmir Medallion Gold Black Silk Carpet 4' x 6'

Silk weaving in the northern valleys of India traces back to the Mughal courts of the seventeenth century, when atelier weavers refined the central-medallion plan into the dense, jewel-toned fields that defined court taste. The medallion in this carpet is the direct grandchild of those drawings, sized for a private chamber rather than a hall, with a black ground that pushes the gold reading forward the way a lacquer panel pushes inlay forward. The pattern resolves at every distance because silk takes pigment to a saturation wool cannot reach.

Two weavers shared the loom for roughly seven months. Every knot was tied by feel against a vertical beam in pure mulberry silk on a cotton warp, the asymmetric Persian knot that lets a single weaver place a colour change inside a millimetre. The dye bath used madder, indigo, walnut hull, and saffron yellow set in copper. Silk takes these dyes deeper than wool and reflects them differently at each angle, which is why a silk carpet shifts colour as you walk past it.

The composition

A central gold medallion floating on a black field. Four palmettes drop into the cardinal directions, each one finished with the small filigree of vine work that signals a high-density loom. The border is a triple guard, the inner band reading as deep ivory against the black. As light moves across the room the gold shifts between honey and pale brass, and the black opens into the depth that only silk produces. The composition rewards both close reading and a glance from across a room.

What you are buying

Comparable silk pieces of this density and condition appear at Bonhams and at European auction houses in the range of three to six lakh rupees, with antique attribution pushing higher still. This is a new weaving in the same lineage on the same kind of loom in the same fibre. The carpet appreciates with use rather than depreciating. Silk does not slacken under foot traffic the way machine-made polyester does. It compacts and gains gloss.

The piece in a room

4' x 6' (122 x 183 cm) is the chamber scale, intended for the foot of a bed, beneath a writing desk, or as the focal field in a sitting room arranged around a single low table. The black ground absorbs ambient light, so a carpet of this kind reads best with a directional lamp or a window angled across it. Walnut, brass, and unbleached linen pair naturally. White walls let the gold expand into the room.

Conservation

Rotate a quarter turn each season so light and traffic distribute evenly. Vacuum on suction only, never with a beater bar. Blot any spill immediately with a clean cotton cloth pressed downward, never rubbed across the pile. Hand-clean by a silk-trained conservator every three years. Kept this way the carpet runs sixty years and gathers gloss the entire time.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted mulberry silk on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 122 x 183 cm (4' x 6')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 2 weavers, ~7 months
• Pile: 6 mm silk
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, walnut hull, saffron)
• Origin: India

Free shipping across India. Cash on delivery available. 7-day exchange. Each silk carpet ships in a custom crate suitable for re-use during storage or relocation.