Rugsville Oxidye Floral Multi Wool Silk Designer Persian Carpet 63382

The wool in this carpet was spun from a long-staple New Zealand fleece chosen for the way it absorbs dye. Short fibres take colour at the surface and bleach out quickly. Long fibres carry pigment through the strand and hold the saturation as the pile is walked down over the years.

The carpet was set up at a vertical loom, where a small team of weavers worked it for several months. Knot count consistent with the pile depth and the loom configuration the workshop uses for this design. The pile is a wool ground with silk picking out the pattern, the wool carrying the body of the field and the silk lifting the highlights with a slight surface lustre. 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

A natural undyed ground carrying the warmth of the long-staple fleece itself. The pattern carries a central medallion, quartered spandrels, and a layered border the eye reads as a single composition rather than a sum of motifs. The slight irregularity in the dye, what the trade calls abrash, is not a flaw. It is the visible record of small batches dyed at separate moments and worked into the field at the loom.

What you are buying

Hand-knotted wool of this grade, in this composition, is sold by Western design dealers at three to four times this listing once the carpet has been sourced, freighted, and presented in a showroom. 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 list price of around Rs 84,000 reflects a workshop equivalent on the open market; the listed price brings the rug down to the level of a serious entry into collecting hand-knotted wool.

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

Reverse the rug end-for-end each spring and autumn. Vacuum weekly on suction only, never with a rotating beater. Blot spills with a clean cotton cloth, working from the outside of the spill in. Conservator hand wash every five to seven years keeps the dye open and the foundation supple.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted New Zealand wool with silk highlights on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: size as listed
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Knot density: ~180 KPSI
• Hands: a small team of weavers, several months
• Pile: 9 mm wool with silk-picked highlights
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, walnut hull, oak gall)
• Origin: India

Shipping anywhere in India is on us. Cash on delivery available. 7-day return window if the piece does not sit right in the room.