Rugsville Overdyed Red Wool Carpet 6' x 9'

Overdyeing is a finishing tradition that came out of late twentieth century studio practice, when weavers began taking older woollen carpets and lowering them into a single saturated bath after the pile had already been sheared down. The result is a piece that keeps the bones of a traditional pattern under a unified colour wash, the way a glaze of red lake sits over an underdrawing in a Florentine panel. The red ground in this carpet is not flat. The original motifs surface and recede as the dye took differently to old wool, new wool, and the cotton edges of the design.

Two to three weavers shared the loom for roughly six months on this 6' x 9' (183 x 274 cm) piece. The base is hand-knotted New Zealand wool on a cotton foundation, sheared close, antique-washed to relax the lustre, and then immersed in a single hand-prepared bath of madder-tinted dye. The dye saturates unevenly by intent, with deeper pools where the pile is densest and lighter wash where the pattern was thinned during shearing.

The composition

A red field that reads as a single colour from across the room and as half a dozen reds on close inspection. Faint medallion work and floral repeats float through it like a lithograph under tinted varnish. The piece will continue to age. The reds will warm into rust over the next decade, and the ghosted pattern beneath will sharpen as light and traffic differentiate the high points of the pile.

What you are buying

Overdyed carpets at this fibre quality and this scale move through Western dealers and design houses at four to six times this price once they cross an ocean. The work in front of you is the same hand-knotted base, the same wool, the same single-bath process. It appreciates with use rather than depreciating. There is no other furnishing object you can put on a floor that holds its value the way this one will.

The piece in a room

6' x 9' (183 x 274 cm) sits cleanly under a three-seater sofa with the front legs on the rug, or floats in front of a primary bed flanked by side tables. The saturated red wants neutral envelopes, lime-washed walls in chalk or bone, oak or walnut floors, leather rather than fabric upholstery. A single graphic painting reads well above it. Patterned upholstery competes and should be avoided.

Conservation

Rotate one hundred eighty degrees twice a year so foot traffic and light age the rug evenly. Vacuum weekly with the beater bar disengaged. Blot any spill with a clean cotton cloth, never rub. A wool-trained conservator should hand-wash the piece every five to seven years. Cared for this way, the carpet runs sixty to eighty years with the colour deepening rather than dulling.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 183 x 274 cm (6' x 9')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot, antique-washed and overdyed
• Hands: 2 to 3 weavers, ~6 months
• Pile: 8 mm
• Dye: madder-based overdye in single immersion bath
• Origin: India

Free shipping across India. Cash on delivery available. 7-day exchange on receipt.