Rugsville Traditional Wool Ivory & Ivory Carpet 9' x 12'

Tone-on-tone weaving is the highest test of a workshop. With colour stripped out as a variable, every irregularity in spinning, dyeing, or knotting becomes visible. The Mughal court ateliers at Lahore produced ivory-on-ivory carpets in the seventeenth century that are now among the most contested lots at any sale of Indian textile art, precisely because so few survived and so few were attempted. The composition in front of you sits in that thin tradition.

Three to four weavers shared the loom for around seven months in India, the additional time accounting for the discipline the field demands. The wool is hand-carded and spun into two slightly different weights, one for the field and one for the embossed pattern, so the relief catches light without contrast in colour. Around 2.6 million knots were tied through cotton warp. The dye bath was a single light pearl wash with a faint warm undertone from walnut hull.

The composition

The whole rug works in a single ivory register. A central medallion is drawn entirely through pile relief and knot direction, visible only as light moves across the surface. The border carries the same medallion logic, a quiet outline rather than a contrasting band. From across the room it reads as a textured field. From close up the architecture emerges. The rug brightens against natural light and softens under lamps.

What you are buying

Single-tone Mughal-tradition carpets at this scale almost never come to the open market. When they do, they clear the major rooms in the range of forty to eighty thousand US dollars. This is a contemporary weaving in the same discipline, on cotton foundation, in hand-spun wool. The piece appreciates as the wool develops the low sheen that only walking and time produce, and as collectors thin out from the category.

The piece in a room

9' x 12' (274 x 366 cm) is the scale at which the tonal field begins to do its real work. Place the rug under a ten-seat table or beneath a long sectional. Pair with off-white plaster or pale stone walls; saturated walls reduce the rug to texture. Bronze, antique brass, smoked oak, and unbleached linen all sit naturally with the ivory field. Avoid placing strongly patterned upholstery directly above it.

Conservation

Rotate one hundred and eighty degrees every six months. Vacuum weekly, suction only. Address spills immediately on an ivory rug; the small window between blot and stain is the difference between conservation and restoration. Schedule a wash with a conservator every three to five years rather than the standard five to seven. Cared for this way the rug runs a century.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 274 x 366 cm (9' x 12')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3-4 weavers, 7 months
• Pile: 9 mm hand-spun wool
• Origin: India

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