The contemporary Indian weaving studios have spent the last two decades translating mid-century European and American graphic vocabularies into wool. The result is a current of design that owes something to Sonia Delaunay, something to Anni Albers, and something to the original Berber loom, but reads as wholly contemporary. The rug here belongs to that working tradition.

This rug was hand-tufted in India over 5 weeks by a team of two tufters and a finisher. Wool was driven through a stretched cotton primary cloth one row at a time with a tufting gun, then sealed at the back with natural latex and a cotton scrim. The final pass was sheared by hand to bring the pile to even depth across the field. The wool was sourced from New Zealand mills for the consistency of staple length the design demands. The rug is offered in a gold register, made in India.

The composition

Gold dominates the composition. The motifs sit in measured intervals across the field, with the border holding the composition rather than competing with it. The wool will lighten in the high-light areas over the next decade and the dyes will deepen in the protected zones, the pattern of slow change every plant-dyed pile carries. The corners will not match exactly, which is the proof that a person rather than a printer made the surface. The pattern photographs differently than it reads in person, which is true of every wool surface and one reason rugs of this calibre are ideally seen in the room they will live in before purchase.

The piece in a room

The format here anchors a primary bedroom or a compact living room. The rug sits below a queen bed or in front of a three-seater sofa, with the pattern reading as the field that pulls everything else into relation. Walls in plaster, putty, or warm white hold the saturation, while darker walls let the rug settle into the architecture as a considered ground.

Care

Vacuum weekly with the beater bar disengaged. Every tufted rug loses fibre to a beater bar regardless of price. Blot spills with a clean cotton cloth, never rub. Expect light shedding for the first six weeks of use as loose fibres work themselves out of the pile; the body of the rug is unaffected. Professional dry clean every three years to refresh the surface and maintain the cotton scrim that supports the pile.

Reference

• Medium: hand-tufted wool, latex bonded, cotton scrim
• Dimensions: size as listed above
• Hands: 2 tufters and 1 finisher, ~5 weeks
• Pile: 12 mm
• Origin: India

Complimentary shipping in India. Cash on delivery available. Exchange within seven days of receipt.