Working a sari-silk pile by hand is slow because the fibre is variable. Each knot has to be tied against thread that may have come from a different bolt of sari, dyed in a different season, by a different hand. What the irregularity gives back is light. The rug catches sunlight differently at every hour of the day.

Two-handed work for 4 months by 2 weavers seated together at the beam. About 100 knots to the square inch, asymmetric, every one tied by feel. Roughly 346,000 hand-tied knots in total. The pile is recycled sari silk, chosen because it takes plant dye to the depth the cartoon needs without flattening into uniformity. The colour was drawn from a workshop palette held over decades, with each batch matched against the master cartoon before the loom was strung.

The composition

Ivory and bone. The recycled silk catches light unevenly across the field, so the same rug reads warm at one hour and cool at another. With wear, the brighter notes settle and the darker notes open up. The rug arrives ready to start, not finished.

What you are buying

The price reflects the loom-time and the fibre, nothing else. A new Sari Silk weaving of this size and density would sell at three to four times this figure through a London or New York dealer; the same piece would carry a similar premium at a major auction house. A hand-knotted carpet of this quality holds its value over decades and tends to gain rather than lose.

The piece in a room

4' x 6' (122 x 183 cm) works under a coffee table with seating arranged around it, in a primary bedroom as a foot-of-the-bed runner, or as the anchor in a small reading area. The ivory palette pairs with rattan, leather, linen upholstery, and wood flooring across the warm spectrum. The proportions also fit a child's bedroom or a smaller dressing area without crowding the floor plan. The drawing rewards the room being kept simple around it.

Conservation

Rotate a half turn each spring and autumn so light and traffic age the pile evenly. Vacuum weekly with the beater bar disengaged, suction only. Blot spills with a clean cotton cloth, never rub. Hand-wash by a wool-trained conservator every five to seven years. With this care the rug runs eighty to a hundred years and outlives its first owners.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted recycled sari silk on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 4' x 6' (122 x 183 cm)
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Knot density: ~100 KPSI
• Total knot count: ~346,000
• Hands: 2 weavers, 4 months
• Pile: shorn close, hand-finished
• Origin: India

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