By the late nineteenth century the workshops at Sultanabad in western Iran had developed a softer, airier register of Persian carpet design intended for the Anglo-American market. A Swiss firm operating in the region commissioned weavers to open up the dense floral repeats of court tradition into ground colours that breathed, with vine work that read as drawing rather than ornament. The pattern in this carpet descends directly from that lineage.

Three weavers shared the upright loom in northern India for around six months. The foundation is cotton warp and weft, the pile is hand-spun wool, the knot a Persian asymmetric tied row by row against the vertical beam. Madder root, indigo, walnut hull, and oak gall carried the palette, each one matured in copper for two to three weeks before the wool was lowered. The dye programme is the same one the Sultanabad workshops used in the 1890s, carried into a contemporary weaving.

The composition

An open ivory ground carries a generous Herati vine in soft rust and indigo. The vine drawing is loose and confident, with corner spandrels in the deeper indigo balancing the field rather than crowding it. The border is restrained, a single guard band rather than the layered borders that turn lesser Sultanabads busy. The colour is not stable. Over the next decade the ivory will warm to bone, the indigos will deepen, and the rust will lighten. A vegetable dyed Sultanabad arrives ready to start, not finished.

What you are buying

Antique Sultanabads with 1900-1920 attribution and comparable condition sell at international auction in the range of fifteen to forty lakh equivalent when they appear at all. This is a new weaving in the same tradition, on the same kind of loom, in the same density, in the same fibre. The carpet appreciates with use rather than depreciating. There is no other object at any price you put on a floor with that property.

The piece in a room

9' x 12' (274 x 366 cm) is the canonical drawing room scale, intended for a sectional sofa or a long dining table seating ten to twelve as the work the room is arranged around. Mid tone walls hold the saturation. Brass and aged bronze read well above the field. Direct sunlight helps; UV restores the dye depth that interior light slowly washes out.

Conservation

Rotate the carpet a half turn each spring and autumn so light and traffic age it evenly. Vacuum weekly on suction only, beater bar disengaged. Blot spills with a clean cotton cloth. Hand wash by a wool trained conservator every five years. With this care, the carpet runs eighty to a hundred years and outlives its first owners.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 274 x 366 cm (9' x 12')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3 weavers, ~6 months
• Pile: hand-spun wool
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, walnut, oak gall)
• Origin: India

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