Rugsville Shalimar Navy Rust Wool Carpet 3' x 3'

A modern rug is built to read as one image rather than as a repeating pattern. The studio tradition the piece descends from runs from the Bauhaus weave room through Eileen Gray's villa rugs and into the present. The composition is its own argument; nothing in it refers outward.

The work occupied the loom for around four months under Two. The wool is hand-spun and the dye batches were small enough that the field carries a slight tonal drift as it crosses the rug. The whole piece is washed after weaving to settle the colour and bring up the surface sheen.

The composition

Rust and navy dominates the composition. The geometry sits at considered scale, neither pushed forward as ornament nor pulled back into ground. Plant-derived dye gives the surface a soft register that synthetic colour cannot reach, and the wool ages into the palette rather than against it. The detail in the field is meant to be discovered by the foot before it is read by the eye, which is why the rug responds so well to a low, centred furniture arrangement. Across the first season of use the wool will oxidise into a slightly deeper register and the dye will find its final saturation against the warp.

What you are buying

Read the auction records before reading the price. Antique pieces in this lineage, in comparable scale, with original colour intact, change hands at international rooms at four to eight times this figure. This is a new weaving made on the same loom, in the same fibre, to a comparable density. The rug appreciates with use rather than depreciating, which is the working argument for a hand-knotted carpet at any price point.

The piece in a room

4' x 6' works as a punctuation rug. Place it beside a bed, under a corner armchair, or in front of an entry door, where its geometry registers on the body before it registers on the eye. The colour holds at close range and across distance; the wool carries enough body that the piece feels warm underfoot in any season.

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: 4' x 6' (122 x 183 cm)
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot, hand-tied row by row
• Knot count: approximately 0.6 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

Ships free anywhere in India. Cash on delivery available. Seven days to exchange after receipt.