Rugsville French Savonnerie Wool Gold Black Carpet 2'6"x8' Runner

Savonnerie was the royal French carpet manufactory, founded under Louis XIII at the old soap works on the Quai de Chaillot. Its weavers borrowed the Persian knot but redirected the design to French baroque architecture, scrolling acanthus, garland borders, and pictorial central reserves drawn from court painting.

Two weavers, around four months on the loom. Around 0.5 million knots tied row by row. The pile is hand-spun wool, prepared and dyed in small batches to keep the saturation a Savonnerie palette demands.

The composition

The composition is anchored in gold and black. The pattern is allowed enough silence around it that the rug reads as ground rather than as figure, which is the harder achievement in carpet design. The tonal range is narrow by design and the colour relationships will tighten as the wool settles in over the first months of use. The piece is meant to recede into the architecture of the room and let the furniture, the art, and the light do the speaking. Up close the small variations across the field are visible as the trace of a hand-dyed wool batched in small lots.

What you are buying

The pricing reflects the workshop economics of hand-knotted weaving at this density. Antique carpets in the same tradition, when they reach Christie's, Sotheby's or Rippon Boswell, are routinely catalogued at multiples of this figure. The rug appreciates with use rather than depreciating, and the wool tightens into the foundation as the piece settles into its working life.

The piece in a room

At 2'6" x 8' the rug holds a hallway, a kitchen run, or the long side of an island worktop. The eye travels with the geometry rather than against it, and the construction is sized to take continuous foot traffic. The piece sits flat against the floor; under-rug grip is recommended on stone or polished concrete to keep the runner from creeping.

Conservation

Conservation of a hand-knotted carpet is a matter of small consistent attention. Rotate the rug end for end at six-month intervals to even the wear. Vacuum weekly on suction with no rotary brush; the bar will pull at the pile and accelerate ageing. Blot any spill immediately with a clean dry cotton cloth, working from the outside of the spill toward its centre. Send the piece for a hand wash by a wool-trained conservator every five to seven years.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 2'6" x 8' (76 x 244 cm)
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot, hand-tied row by row
• Knot count: approximately 0.5 million knots
• Hands: 2 weavers, around four months
• Pile: 8 to 10 mm, hand-spun wool
• Dye: vegetable, small-batch copper-vat process
• Origin: India

Free shipping nationwide. Cash on delivery available. Seven-day return or exchange.