Rugsville Tabriz Wool Rust Black Carpet 2'6" x 14'

The composition is built around the open ivory ground. Everything else in the rug works in service of it. The border, the secondary motifs, the colour ratios were all worked back from that single decision before a knot was tied. The result is a piece that reads as one considered field rather than as a collection of decorative parts.

A single weaver worked this piece for three to four months in India. The pile is hand-spun wool. The foundation is a cotton foundation. Every knot tied by feel against the warp, then beaten down with a steel comb before the next row went in. The making is slow because the result is meant to last several lifetimes.

The composition

A central anchor in rust, framed by spandrels and a single guard band rather than the layered borders that turn lesser pieces busy. The wool catches light unevenly, which is the property a knotted carpet is built around. Photographs flatten it; the rug in a room reads with depth. The dyes will deepen with light exposure rather than fading, the way the best of the antique pieces in this lineage have done over a century of household use.

What you are buying

Antique pieces in this idiom with comparable density and condition come up at international auction in a price band considerably above this listing when they appear at all. This is a new weaving in the same tradition, on the same kind of loom, at the same density, in the same fibre. The carpet appreciates with use rather than depreciating. There are very few household objects you can say that of at any price.

The piece in a room

2'6" x 14' (76 × 427 cm) is the working scale for a small living room, a study, a guest bedroom, or a dining nook for two to four. It anchors a seating area with the front legs of the sofa landing on the rug and the back legs on the floor. Sits well under a low coffee table with metal legs and reads through the legs of a daybed. The rust ground stays visible at the perimeter of the furniture, which is what gives the rug its work in a room.

Conservation

Rotate the carpet a half turn every six months so light and traffic age the surface evenly. Vacuum weekly with the beater bar disengaged; suction only, never the rotating brush. Blot spills with a clean cotton cloth, never rub. A wool-trained conservator should hand-wash the piece 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 wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 76 × 427 cm (2'6" x 14')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: a single weaver, three to four months
• Pile: hand-spun wool
• Origin: India

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