Rugsville Moroccan Beni Ourain Ivory Wool Carpet 5' x 8'

The Moroccan diamond grid carried by this rug, held in ivory, traces back to the workshops of nineteenth-century Persia, when court designers were translating manuscript illumination onto the loom for the first time. Hand-knotted carpets in this idiom passed from royal commissions into the wider trade through the early twentieth century, and the visual grammar settled into the form you see here. What you have in front of you is a direct descendant of that long migration of design from page to wool.

2 to 3 weavers shared the loom for 3 months. Each knot tied by feel against a vertical beam, then beaten down with a metal comb. The pile is wool, hand-spun before dyeing so the fibre keeps its natural irregularity. The dye is colourfast and the foundation is cotton warp and weft, which gives the rug the structural memory to lie flat on a hard floor without underlay creep.

The composition

The Moroccan diamond grid runs across an ivory field. The single-tone composition lets the geometry do the work, and the wool's natural variation carries the eye. The colour will deepen by a half-tone over the first decade as the pile settles and the wool's natural lanolin works through the surface.

What you are buying

This is an entry point to collecting hand-knotted wool work. Comparable pieces in the dealer trade carry margins that double or triple this number. The rug holds value in use, which makes it the rare floor object that earns its keep and gains character at the same time.

The piece in a room

At 5' x 8' (152 x 244 cm) the rug sits under a coffee table with a sofa floating along one edge, or fills a primary bedroom under the bed and bedside tables. The palette is warm enough to settle into the architecture and graphic enough to remain the still point of the room. It pairs well with walnut, oak, brass, leather, and unbleached linen. Strongly patterned upholstery is the one combination to avoid; the rug is the graphic event.

Conservation

Rotate one hundred and eighty degrees twice a year so light and foot traffic age the rug evenly. Vacuum on suction only with the beater bar disengaged. Blot spills with a clean cotton cloth, working from the outside of the spill in. A hand-wash by a wool-trained conservator every five to seven years keeps the dye depth alive. With this care the rug runs eight decades and outlasts its first owners.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 152 x 244 cm (5' x 8')
• Construction: asymmetric knot, hand-tied
• Knot density: ~120 KPSI
• Total knot count: ~691,000
• Hands: 2 to 3 weavers, 3 months
• Pile: 9-10 mm wool
• Origin: India

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