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

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Anatolian weavers had begun to thin the heavy palette of the classical Ushak workshops in response to demand from European and American collectors. The result was a new family of carpets built around chalky grounds, ghosted floral grids, and quiet borders that read almost as architecture rather than ornament. The drawing in this piece sits squarely inside that revisionist Oushak language.

A team of four weavers worked the loom in India for nearly eight months. The wool was hand-spun in small lots, washed in cold mountain water, and dyed across copper vats charged with madder, indigo, pomegranate rind, and oak gall. The asymmetric knot was tied against a vertical beam, row by row, with the looser tension that gives Oushaks their characteristic suppleness underfoot.

The composition

A washed grey field with a faint warm undertow. Floral medallions drawn in soft ivory float in a slow procession from end to end. The border carries a restrained palmette band in stone and putty. Because the wool has been over-dyed in two passes rather than dipped once, the grey shifts subtly toward a warmer tone in raking light, which is why the rug never looks flat in a photograph or in a room.

What you are buying

An antique Oushak in this scale, with comparable drawing and palette, sells through the major Western auction houses for between thirty-five thousand and seventy thousand US dollars when it surfaces. This is a contemporary weaving made by hand in India to the same construction logic, with the same fibre and dye stock. A rug in this category appreciates with use rather than depreciating. The price you pay today is closer to the cost of the wool and the months of skilled labour than to the eventual market value.

The piece in a room

12' x 18' (366 x 549 cm) is the working scale for a formal dining hall, a country-house drawing room, or a hotel lobby with a defined seating circle. The greys read against limewashed plaster, against grey-veined marble, against bleached oak. The wool is dense enough to support heavy furniture without crushing.

Conservation

Quarter-turn the rug twice a year so the floral fields wear evenly across the four corners. Vacuum weekly, suction only, beater bar off. Blot any spill on contact with a dry cotton cloth. Schedule a hand wash by a wool-trained conservator every five to seven years. With careful stewardship the rug runs a hundred years and gathers value as it goes.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 366 x 549 cm (12' x 18')
• Construction: asymmetric Persian knot
• Hands: 4 weavers, ~8 months
• Pile: hand-spun wool, low cut
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, pomegranate, oak gall)
• Origin: India

Free shipping across India. Cash on delivery available. 7-day exchange. The rug ships crated and the crate doubles as a long-term storage container.