Rugsville Oxydye Gray Wool Silk Carpet 9' x 12'

Oxidised dyeing is a contemporary technique that came out of the Indian workshops in the 1990s, when designers began asking the dye houses for the chromatic depth of an antique Persian carpet without the decades of natural ageing. The process washes a hand-knotted rug in a controlled iron-rich solution after the pile is finished, which oxidises the dyes by a few values and produces a subtle silvery cast across the entire field. The grey here is the result of that wash applied to a wool and silk pile woven in the modernist abstract idiom.

Three weavers shared the loom for six months. The pile combines New Zealand wool with mulberry silk in irregular distribution across the cartoon, so the silk catches the oxidising wash differently from the wool and the field develops a layered texture rather than a flat tone. Knots are Persian asymmetric tied by feel against the beam. After the rug came off the loom, it was washed in the iron solution, sun-dried, then washed again in a mild neutralising bath, the entire process supervised by hand to control the depth of the oxidation.

The composition

A grey field that ranges from charcoal at the edges to a soft pewter through the centre, with silver and bone passages where the silk concentrates and the oxidising wash has lightened them most. There is no medallion and no border. The composition reads as weather seen through smoked glass. The rug shifts considerably under different light. North light cools it. Tungsten warms it toward bronze. The piece holds attention for years because there is no fixed point at which it resolves.

What you are buying

Oxidised wool and silk hand-knotted carpets at 9' x 12' (274 x 366 cm) from the studios that pioneered the technique sit at $11,000 to $22,000 in the contemporary design trade. This piece is woven and washed to the same standard, in the same workshops, sold direct. A wool and silk carpet finished by oxidising appreciates as the silk burnishes through the first decade and the field gains the second-stage patina that the wash sets up.

The piece in a room

9' x 12' (274 x 366 cm) anchors a contemporary lounge or a dining room with eight to ten chairs. The grey palette settles under any wall colour and reads as architecture rather than as ornament. Pairs with raw oak, blackened steel, and natural linen. A strong contemporary work on the principal wall lifts the rug forward and gives the silk passages something to dialogue with.

Conservation

Half-turn the rug every six months. Vacuum suction-only weekly. Blot spills with cotton. The oxidised pile is more sensitive to alkaline detergents than a standard wool rug, so any specialist wash should be done by a conservator who has handled oxidised carpets before. Wash every five to seven years. The piece typically runs sixty to eighty years.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted New Zealand wool with mulberry silk, oxidised wash, cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 274 x 366 cm (9' x 12')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3 weavers, 6 months
• Pile: 10 mm
• Origin: India

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