The Mahal pattern is the open-field cousin of the dense Sultanabad. Where Sultanabad weavers crowded vine and palmette into the centre of the rug, Mahal workshops in central Persia opened the field and let the floral motif breathe across an unbroken ground. The Mahal carpet was the rug that defined Edwardian drawing rooms in London and New York between 1900 and 1925, and its descendants are still woven on Indian looms today by workshops who learned the pattern from grandfathers.

Three weavers worked the loom for around five months. New Zealand wool was hand-spun on the village wheel, then washed and conditioned before entering the dye vats. Vegetable dyes from madder root, indigo, oak gall, and walnut hull were each matured for two to three weeks before the wool was lowered. The Persian asymmetric knot is tied against a cotton foundation. The total knot count across the field works out to roughly 2.5 million.

The composition

An ivory ground carries scattered floral sprays in faded coral, soft indigo, and walnut, drawn loose enough to read as a meadow rather than a tiled pattern. The border is a single restrained running vine in indigo. The wool will warm into bone over the first decade, the corals will soften into salmon, and the indigo will deepen rather than fade. The rug carries the abrash banding that hand-dyed wool always produces, and that banding is the visible record of the weaver's day.

What you are buying

Antique Mahal carpets of comparable scale and palette move through Christie's, Sotheby's, and Rippon Boswell in the range of $12,000 to $30,000 when condition is auction-grade. This piece is woven in the same idiom, on the same loom geometry, to the same density, in the same fibre. The vegetable-dyed Mahal appreciates with use rather than depreciating, which is the property collectors pay for at the upper end of the market.

The piece in a room

9' x 12' (274 x 366 cm) is the canonical drawing-room scale, large enough to sit a full seating group on, a ten-seat dining table over, or a king bed across. The ivory ground keeps the room light; the floral palette adds layered colour without committing to a period interior. Pair with walnut or oak floors, linen upholstery, walls in chalk or warm grey, and unlacquered brass fixtures.

Conservation

Rotate the rug each season for even light and footfall ageing. Vacuum weekly on suction with the beater bar disengaged. Blot spills immediately with cool water and a clean cotton cloth. Plan a hand wash by a wool-trained specialist every five years. With this regimen the rug runs ninety years.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted New Zealand wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 274 x 366 cm (9' x 12')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Total knot count: ~2.5 million
• Hands: 3 weavers, ~5 months
• Pile: 10 mm hand-spun wool
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, oak gall, walnut)
• Origin: India

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