By the late nineteenth century, the Ziegler workshops in western Iran were rewriting the Persian field for the European drawing room. The classical compositions were too dense for the new generation of British and American collectors, and the Ziegler weavers softened the floral repeats into open, airy fields with quieter borders. The pattern in front of you sits directly inside that lineage and is woven in the vegetable-dye palette the original Sultanabads were built on.

Three weavers shared the loom for around six months to complete this 8' x 10' (244 x 305 cm) carpet. The pile is hand-spun wool, dyed in copper vats with madder root, indigo, oak gall, walnut hull, and pomegranate skin, each bath matured for two to three weeks before the wool was lowered. The cotton foundation was double-warped to hold tension across the eight-foot weft, and each knot was tied by feel against a vertical beam.

The composition

An ivory ground holding a soft beige floral pattern, with vine work in muted madder running corner to corner. The vegetable dyes refuse to sit flat. The ivory shifts toward bone in some passages, the beige carries warmth in others, and the madder darkens against direct light. A vegetable-dyed Ziegler does not arrive complete. It arrives ready to start aging.

What you are buying

Antique Ziegler-Sultanabads with original-period attribution and comparable condition sell at international auction in the range of ₹25 to ₹50 lac when they appear at all. This is a new weaving in the same tradition, on the same kind of loom, to the same density, in the same vegetable-dyed wool. The carpet appreciates with use rather than depreciating, which is what makes Sultanabads the only flooring in the world bought as an investment piece.

The piece in a room

8' x 10' (244 x 305 cm) is the canonical drawing-room scale. The carpet expects an eight-seater dining table or a full sectional sofa above it, not as flooring underneath the furniture but as the work the room is arranged around. Mid-tone walls hold the saturation. Direct sunlight helps; UV restores the dye depth that interior light slowly washes out.

Conservation

Rotate a half turn each spring and autumn so light and footfall age the rug evenly. Vacuum weekly, suction only, beater bar disengaged. Blot spills with a clean cotton cloth and cool water; never apply detergent to vegetable-dyed wool. Hand wash by a wool-trained conservator every five years.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted hand-spun wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 244 x 305 cm (8' x 10')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3 weavers, ~6 months
• Pile: 10 mm hand-spun wool
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, oak gall, walnut hull, pomegranate)
• Origin: India

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