Rugsville Sultanabad Classic Vegetable dyes Wool Carpet 10' x 14'

The Sultanabad classic is the workshop pattern that established what a Persian rug looked like in the western imagination. An open ground, a measured all-over floral repeat, a restrained border, and a palette built on madder reds, indigo blues, and warm undyed cream. The design was developed in central Iran in the 1880s for an export market that wanted Persian without baroque, and it has remained one of the most copied and most respected compositions in the field. This rug is a working contemporary version of that lineage.

The 10' x 14' (305 x 427 cm) field was tied by three to four weavers across roughly seven months. The pile is New Zealand wool, hand-spun, chosen for its longer staple and its ability to take vegetable dye to deep saturation. The dyes were prepared from madder root, indigo, oak gall, and walnut hull, each colour matured for several weeks in copper vats before the wool was dipped. The foundation is cotton, warped vertically and tensioned by hand.

The composition

An ivory and soft cream ground carries an all-over floral repeat in faded brick red, deep indigo, and old gold. There is no central medallion; the design is a continuous field that lets the eye settle anywhere. The border is a single broad guard band in indigo. Vegetable-dyed wool ages in plain sight. Over the next decade the reds will warm, the blues will deepen, and the cream will warm into wheat.

What you are buying

Comparable antique Sultanabads of this scale and palette sell through the major Western houses at attribution prices in the thirty to sixty thousand US dollar range. Modern workshop weavings in the same tradition trade through Western dealers in the four to seven lakh range. This piece is offered direct from the loom at a fraction of either comparable. Hand-knotted vegetable-dyed wool on cotton appreciates with use rather than depreciating because every input is a finite material.

The piece in a room

10' x 14' (305 x 427 cm) is the working scale for a generous primary drawing room or a long dining setting. The cream and indigo palette is among the most flexible the tradition produces. The piece pairs with walnut, oak, brass, restrained period furniture, and either oil painting or considered modern work. Mid-tone walls hold the saturation best; pure white walls can wash the colour slightly.

Conservation

Vacuum weekly with the beater bar off and suction only. Rotate the piece a half turn each spring and autumn so traffic and sunlight age it evenly. Blot any spill with a dry cotton cloth, never rub. Schedule a hand-wash by a wool-trained conservator every five years. Treated this way the carpet runs eighty to a hundred years and gains the soft patina older Sultanabads are prized for.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted New Zealand wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 305 x 427 cm (10' x 14')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3 to 4 weavers, ~7 months
• Pile: 8 to 12 mm, hand-spun wool
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, oak gall, walnut hull)
• Origin: India

Free shipping anywhere in India. Cash on delivery accepted. 7-day exchange from the date the rug arrives.