Rugsville Orly Traditional Vegetable Dyes Red Floral Hand Knotted Wool Carpet 8' x 10'

Floral repeats in red on a Persian-influenced carpet trace back to the Sultanabad workshops of the nineteenth century, where the master dyers had figured out how to push madder root to the depth and stability that other workshops could not match. The Orly draw belongs to that tradition, with a distributed floral field rather than a centred medallion, the pattern designed to be read from anywhere in the room rather than from a single sightline.

Three weavers in India spent close to seven months on the loom. Hand-spun wool was knotted across a cotton warp and weft. The red passages were built up across two madder baths, alum-mordanted, and air-cured for a week between dyeing and washing so the colour penetrated the fibre rather than coating it. The walnut and indigo accents were dyed in copper vats, each colour matured for two to three weeks before the wool was lowered.

The composition

A red field carries floral tracery in cream, walnut, and faint indigo, distributed evenly across the surface so no centre claims the eye. The drawing has the loose, hand-rendered quality of vegetable-dyed wool, with each motif slightly different from its neighbour rather than mechanically repeated. The red will deepen by half a tone over the first decade and the cream will warm into bone, the carpet settling into a richer overall key as it ages.

What you are buying

Antique Sultanabad-style carpets in 8' x 10' format with vegetable dye and condition grading clear thirty to sixty thousand US dollars at Sotheby's, Christie's, and Rippon Boswell when they come to market. This is a new weaving on the same loom and the same draw, in hand-spun wool dyed by the same vegetable processes, made in India. The Western dealer multiplier on equivalent new goods is three to four. The carpet appreciates with use rather than depreciating.

The piece in a room

8' x 10' (244 x 305 cm) is the working drawing-room scale. The carpet expects a full sectional sofa or a six-to-eight-seat dining table arranged above it, with the rug as the visual ground rather than as a layer beneath the furniture. The red palette pairs with walnut, oak, brass, and natural leather, and holds against walls in chalk, stone, sage, or deep blue. Warm rooms gain depth; cool rooms gain heat.

Conservation

Rotate a half turn each spring and autumn so foot traffic and light wear evenly. Vacuum weekly with the beater bar off, suction only. Blot spills with a clean cotton cloth, never rub a vegetable-dyed wool. A trained conservator should hand-wash the carpet every five 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: 244 x 305 cm (8' x 10')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3 weavers, ~7 months
• Pile: 10 mm hand-spun wool
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, walnut hull)
• Origin: India

Free shipping across India. Cash on delivery available. 7-day exchange. The rug ships crated and the crate is reusable for any later move or seasonal storage.