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

The medallion-and-palmette plan is the oldest signature of the high-knot silk tradition, refined across four centuries in the workshops of northern India and the Safavid court ateliers that informed them. A rust ground reading against gold is one of the harder palettes to balance because both pigments are warm; the design solves the problem by holding the gold to the medallion and letting the rust carry the field. The corners are quartered to echo the central form so the eye reads the whole carpet as a single arrangement rather than a centre with separate borders.

The piece took two weavers approximately seven months at the beam. Pure mulberry silk on cotton, asymmetric knots tied by feel, the dye bath built from madder root, lac insect, walnut hull, and a saffron extract for the deep ochre tones. Lac and madder together produce the rust register that defines this carpet, and they age in opposite directions; over a decade the lac will warm and the madder will cool, so the field gradually settles into a single tone rather than reading as two reds laid against each other.

The composition

A gold medallion lifted clear of a rust ground. Four palmette pendants reach into the cardinal directions, each terminated by the fine arabesque tracery that only fine silk supports. The border runs in three bands, an inner garland of leaf forms framed by deeper guards. Light strikes silk in two phases, surface and reflection, which is why the gold reads bright at one angle and bone at another. The whole carpet shifts in colour as the day moves across it.

What you are buying

Auction comparables for silk carpets at this density and condition track between three and six lakh rupees at the major Indian houses, more for vintage attribution. This is a current weaving in the same tradition, the same fibre, the same knot architecture. The carpet appreciates with use rather than depreciating. Silk pile compacts and gains lustre under foot, the opposite trajectory of synthetic floor coverings.

The piece in a room

4' x 6' (122 x 183 cm) is sized for a private library, the foot of a primary bed, or the focal area of a small sitting room laid out around a low table. The rust ground reads warm against neutral plaster walls and against the warm finish of teak, walnut, or cherry. A single directional lamp picks up the medallion gold; ambient light alone tends to flatten the field and is worth correcting with a floor lamp angled toward the centre.

Conservation

Rotate a quarter turn each season so the silk pile receives light and footfall evenly. Vacuum on suction setting only. Blot spills with a clean dry cotton cloth pressed downward into the pile rather than wiped across it. Engage a silk specialist for cleaning every three years. Kept under those terms the carpet outlasts its first owner and gathers depth across the decades.

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, lac, walnut hull, saffron)
• Origin: India

Free shipping anywhere in India. Cash on delivery available. 7-day exchange. The carpet arrives in a sealed wooden crate that may be kept for storage or transport.