Rugsville Ziegler Sultanabad Floral Ivory Wool Carpet 8' x 10'

New Zealand wool is the only fibre that takes vegetable dye to the saturation a Sultanabad design demands without losing the slight irregularity that gives the carpet its patina. The Sultanabad type was codified in the late nineteenth century when the Swiss firm Ziegler & Co. set up commissioning offices in western Persia and asked weavers to soften the dense floral repeats of classical work into open, airy fields with restrained borders. The Anglo-American drawing rooms of the period absorbed the result. The lineage is unbroken.

This 8' x 10' (244 x 305 cm) ivory carpet was woven by three weavers across roughly five months on an upright loom. Around 2.4 million Persian asymmetric knots, each tied by feel. The pile is fourteen-micron New Zealand wool. The vegetable dyes were prepared from madder root, indigo leaf, oak gall, and walnut hull, each matured in copper vats for two to three weeks before the wool was lowered into the bath. Cotton foundation throughout.

The composition

An ivory ground that holds the eye open. Across it, a vine pattern in muted indigo, faded rose, and oxidised rust running corner to corner with the rhythm only plant dye produces. The medallion is barely indicated, suggested rather than stated. The border is a single restrained guard band rather than the layered borders that turn lesser Sultanabad weavings busy. Direct sunlight will lighten the ivory toward bone over five years and deepen the indigos.

What you are buying

Antique Sultanabads of this scale with 1900-1920 provenance sell at Christie's and Sotheby's between $20,000 and $40,000 when they appear in good condition. This is a new weaving in the same tradition, on the same kind of upright loom, to the same density, in the same New Zealand wool. The rug appreciates with use rather than depreciating. There is no other category of object you place under foot with that property at any price.

The piece in a room

8' x 10' is the working scale for a primary living area or a medium dining room. The rug expects an eight-seater dining table, a sofa-and-two-chair arrangement, or a substantial bed pushed into the field with carpet showing on three sides. The ivory ground wants mid-tone walls, a soft clay or warm grey, that hold the saturation. Walnut and brass furniture work; high-gloss black or chrome competes with the wool's matte surface.

Conservation

Rotate a half turn twice a year so light and traffic age the rug evenly. Vacuum weekly, suction only, no beater bar. Blot any spills with cool water and a cotton cloth. A wool-trained hand wash every five years will lift the dust the vacuum cannot reach. With this care the carpet runs eighty to a hundred years and will outlive its first owners.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted New Zealand wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 244 x 305 cm (8' x 10')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3 weavers, ~5 months
• Pile: 9 mm, 14-micron wool
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, oak gall, walnut hull)
• Origin: India

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