Rugsville Traditional Wool Ivory & Red Carpet 8' x 10'

Traditional Persian carpet weaving in ivory and red is one of the oldest two-colour conversations in the textile world. The ivory carries the drawing, the red carries the weight, and the eye reads the design as figure against ground rather than as a busy field. Court workshops of the Safavid period set the template, and country weavers across the wider Persian sphere have refined it for four centuries since.

This carpet was hand-knotted in India by a team of three weavers who shared the loom for roughly six months. The pile is hand-spun wool drawn from highland fleece, plied for tensile strength, and dyed in small batches to keep the reds within a controlled range. Each knot was tied by feel against a vertical beam, finished with a careful clipping pass that brought the medallion drawing forward by a sliver of pile height.

The composition

An ivory ground holds a central red medallion with serrated leaves and curling vine work running into the corners. The red is layered, not flat, with garnet at the centre and a softer brick at the edges where the dye sat lightest. Pendant motifs at top and bottom echo the medallion in miniature. Over years of use the ivory will warm into bone and the red will deepen toward oxblood, the way old Persian rugs settle into themselves.

What you are buying

Antique Persian carpets in this drawing and condition routinely sell at international auctions for two to four times the price asked here. This is a new weaving in the same vocabulary, on the same kind of loom, in the same fibre, by hands that have inherited the technique without interruption. The carpet appreciates with use rather than depreciating. It is one of very few household objects of which that is true.

The piece in a room

8' x 10' (244 x 305 cm) is the working scale for a primary living room with a three-seater sofa and a pair of chairs, or a six-to-eight seat dining configuration. The ivory ground throws light back into the room, which suits darker walls and walnut joinery. Pair with restrained upholstery in linen or unbleached cotton so the carpet remains the graphic event in the composition.

Conservation

Rotate end for end every six months so footfall and daylight age the pile evenly. Vacuum weekly with the beater bar disengaged, suction only. Blot spills with a clean cotton cloth, never rub. A wool-trained conservator should hand-wash the carpet roughly every five to seven years. Treated this way, the rug runs eighty years and becomes a piece an heir wants to keep.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 244 x 305 cm (8' x 10')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3 weavers, ~6 months
• Pile: hand-spun wool
• Origin: India

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