Rugsville Oushaks Traditional Floral Ivory Wool Persian Carpet 63396

Oushak weaving in western Anatolia produced the great room-sized carpets that furnished European palaces from the sixteenth century onward. The school is identified by an open central field, soft saffron and madder ground, and large-scale medallions drawn with a relaxed hand. The pattern in this rug works inside that long tradition.

A small team of weavers shared the loom for several months. Knot count consistent with the pile depth and the loom configuration the workshop uses for this design. The pile is long-staple New Zealand wool, spun in modest batches and dyed before it ever reached the loom. The dyes were drawn from madder root, indigo, walnut hull, and oak gall, prepared in copper vats and matured for two to three weeks before the yarn was lowered.

The composition

An ivory ground that holds the pattern up like a sheet of paper. The pattern carries the open field and large-scale medallion vocabulary of the western Anatolian school, with the corner work simplified to a single quartered motif rather than the layered spandrel of the Persian schools. Wool of this grade settles into use rather than wearing out. The pile compresses, the colour matures, the surface picks up the small irregularities that distinguish a knotted carpet from a printed copy.

What you are buying

Antique Oushak carpets with comparable composition and pile, when they appear at all at Christie's, Sotheby's, or Rippon Boswell, sit in a price band that the new weaving in the same tradition will not approach for two generations. The rug appreciates with use rather than depreciating, which is a property no other object on a floor carries at any price. The cost per year over a sixty-year working life puts the piece below the cost of a printed reproduction with a five-year horizon.

The piece in a room

At the size as listed the rug carries a primary room without dominating it. Mid-tone walls hold the saturation. Direct sunlight helps the dye depth that interior light slowly washes out. The pattern reads at a distance and rewards approach with the small irregularities only a hand-knotted carpet carries.

Conservation

Quarter-turn the rug each season so the pattern wears uniformly. Suction-only vacuuming weekly, no beater bar. Blot spills with cotton and let the pile dry in open air. Hand wash by a wool conservator every six years. A vegetable-dyed wool carpet, looked after this way, runs three generations.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted New Zealand wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: size as listed
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Knot density: ~120 KPSI
• Hands: a small team of weavers, several months
• Pile: 10 mm long-staple wool
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, walnut hull, oak gall)
• Origin: India

Free shipping anywhere in India. Cash on delivery available. 7-day exchange. The piece arrives crated to a standard you can re-use for storage or relocation.