Rugsville Sultanabad Vegetable Dyes Wool Carpet 9' x 12'

About 2.6 million hand tied knots. Roughly six months of work for three weavers on a single upright loom. The Sultanabad pattern asks for that scale of investment because the open ground and generous vine work only succeed when each knot sits cleanly against its neighbour and the dye lots carry across the field without visible breaks. Anything less and the design becomes a flat copy of itself.

The foundation is cotton warp and weft, the pile is hand-spun wool, the knot a Persian asymmetric tied against a vertical beam at a measured cadence row by row. Madder root, indigo, walnut hull, and oak gall carried the palette, each colour matured in copper for two to three weeks before the wool was lowered into the bath. The dye programme follows the practice that the Sultanabad workshops in western Iran developed in the late nineteenth century for the western drawing room market.

The composition

A bone field carries an open floral vine in soft rust, indigo, and deeper walnut. The vine work is loose and confident, with negative space between the motifs as deliberate as the drawing itself. The border is restrained, a single deeper guard band framing the field rather than crowding it. Plant dye gives the bone a faint warmth that pigment cannot reproduce, and the colour will continue to move slowly over the years, with the rust softening into terracotta and the indigos deepening as surface oils settle.

What you are buying

Antique Sultanabads at this scale and condition sell at international auction for 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 fibre, in the same density, with the same dye lineage. The price reflects six months of skilled labour rather than antique scarcity. The carpet appreciates with use rather than depreciating, which is not a property of any other object you place on a floor.

The piece in a room

9' x 12' (274 x 366 cm) is the canonical drawing room scale, sized for a sectional sofa and a low coffee table or a dining arrangement seating ten to twelve as the work the room is built around. Chalk and warm putty walls hold the palette. Brass and aged bronze read well above the field, and walnut or teak joinery sits comfortably with the warmer accents in the vine work.

Conservation

Rotate the carpet a half turn each spring and autumn so window light and traffic age the surface evenly. Vacuum weekly on suction only, beater bar lifted. Blot spills with a clean cotton cloth, never rub. Hand wash by a wool trained conservator every five to seven years. With these habits the carpet runs 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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