Rugsville Ziegler Rust Hand Knotted Wool Carpet 10' x 14'

Ziegler is the name of a design lineage rather than a place. In the late nineteenth century the Swiss firm Ziegler and Company set up buying offices in Persia and began commissioning weavers to soften the dense classical patterns into the open, airy fields that the new generation of European drawing rooms preferred. The drawing in this rust-ground carpet sits squarely in that lineage, with all-over vine work running corner to corner across an uncrowded field.

Four weavers worked this 10' x 14' (305 x 427 cm) loom over roughly seven months. The wool is highland-grade, hand-spun for the slight irregularity that the Persian asymmetric knot rewards and that mill yarn flattens. Dyes were prepared in small copper batches from madder root for the rust ground, indigo for the secondary blues, and oak gall for the deeper browns; each dye lot was matured for two to three weeks before the wool was lowered. The carpet was knotted in India in the workshop tradition that has carried the Ziegler drawing forward into the present.

The composition

A soft rust field carries an all-over vine in indigo, ivory, and walnut brown, framed by a single restrained border rather than the layered borders of the older Persian schools. The drawing has the deliberate openness that defines the Ziegler design; the eye is meant to move across the field rather than landing on a central medallion. With age the rust will lighten toward antique brick and the indigos will deepen, the way every vegetable-dyed Persian-tradition carpet matures.

What you are buying

Antique Ziegler-attributed carpets of comparable scale and condition trade in the international market between $25,000 and $55,000. This is a new weaving in the same tradition, on the same kind of loom, in the same hand-spun fibre, with the same vegetable dyes. The carpet appreciates with use rather than depreciating, and a Ziegler in this scale is among the most liquid object types in the wider Asian rug market because the design carries across decorating idioms.

The piece in a room

10' x 14' (305 x 427 cm) is a generous drawing room or formal dining scale, big enough to sit a full sectional and two armchairs without crowding the borders. The rust palette is at its best with cream walls, walnut or oak joinery, brass and unlacquered bronze, and warm white linen. Direct sunlight is helpful rather than harmful; UV restores the dye depth that interior light slowly washes out.

Conservation

Rotate the carpet a half turn each spring and autumn so traffic and light age the wool evenly. Vacuum weekly on suction with the beater bar off. Blot spills immediately with a clean cotton cloth, never rub. A wool-trained conservator should hand-wash the carpet every five to six years. Cared for this way, the piece runs ninety years and outlives the room it was bought for.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 305 x 427 cm (10' x 14')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 4 weavers, ~7 months
• Pile: hand-spun highland wool, 10 mm
• Dye: vegetable, madder and indigo base
• Origin: India

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