Rugsville Oushaks Traditional Floral Blue Wool Persian Carpet 12' x 18'

Indigo is the oldest of the carpet dyes and the only one that deepens with age rather than fading. The classical Anatolian and Persian workshops built whole palettes around it, layering madder and walnut over the indigo base to produce the slow shifts of blue that distinguish a hand-dyed Oushak from a synthetic copy. The blue at the heart of this piece carries that lineage forward.

Five weavers worked the loom in India for nine months to bring this carpet to size. The wool is hand-spun and the foundation is cotton. The dye lots were prepared in small copper vats from natural indigo and supporting plant material, then matured for two weeks before the skeins were lowered. The asymmetric knot was tied against a vertical beam at a comfortable hand pace, which is the only way a rug of this scale stays uniform across its eighteen-foot length.

The composition

A deep indigo field that reads navy in lamplight and almost black at dusk. Open floral medallions in faded ivory and oxidised gold drift across the field with the irregular grace that only plant dye produces. The border is restrained, a single ivory guard band with a slow vine in soft umber. Because the indigo was dyed in two passes, the colour will deepen by perhaps fifteen percent over the first decade, and the ivory will warm into bone.

What you are buying

A late nineteenth-century Oushak in indigo and at this scale, with comparable condition, would clear forty to ninety thousand US dollars at a Western auction sale. This is a contemporary weaving made in India in the same fibre, on the same kind of loom, to the same density as its antique counterpart. The rug appreciates with use rather than depreciating. There is no other category of furniture that behaves this way at any price point.

The piece in a room

12' x 18' (366 x 549 cm) reads as a defined room within a room. The blue holds a long dining table beautifully, especially under brass or warm halogen light. It also makes excellent ground for a double-sofa lounge arrangement in a high-ceilinged drawing room. Pale walls let the indigo dominate; deep painted walls let it recede into the architecture.

Conservation

Rotate the rug by half a turn each March and September so foot traffic and natural light age the surface evenly. Vacuum weekly with suction only and the beater bar disengaged. Blot spills with a dry cotton cloth on contact and never rub. A wool-trained conservator should hand-wash the rug every five years. With that care the piece runs eighty to a hundred years.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 366 x 549 cm (12' x 18')
• Construction: asymmetric Persian knot
• Hands: 5 weavers, 9 months
• Pile: hand-spun wool, low cut
• Dye: vegetable (indigo dominant, madder, walnut)
• Origin: India

Complimentary delivery anywhere in India. Cash on delivery available. 7-day exchange. The rug ships in a reusable wooden crate.