Vintage Patchwork Modern Overdyed Hand Knotted Area Carpet-Olive 11080 12' x 15'

Olive as a carpet ground is older than most of the dyes used to achieve it. The colour appears in fifteenth-century Mamluk court rugs from indigo cross-dyed with weld, in eighteenth-century Caucasian village weavings from oak gall over indigo, and in the over-dyed patchwork of the contemporary workshop in a single longer immersion that pulls vintage panels of every original colour into one tonal field. The result is the muted military green that sits between sage and bronze, the tone Renaissance painters used as the underpainting for warm flesh.

Five weavers tied this piece together over close to seven months at the 12' x 15' (366 x 457 cm) scale. The total knot count works out to roughly 4.7 million asymmetric ties on a cotton foundation. The vintage panels were sourced from older Turkish and Persian rugs that had already lived twenty to fifty years, cut to size, knotted into a new ground, and then over-dyed as a single composition in copper vats. The olive was struck from indigo with a weld top and an iron after-bath, twelve hours of slow drying between each stage.

The composition

A field of muted olive carries a grid of unequal rectangular fragments. Inside each panel, the ghost of a different older carpet remains legible, a medallion in one cell, a tribal diamond in another, a stylised vine repeat in a third. The over-dye flattens the original palette into tonal cousins of the green, the way a sepia print flattens a colour photograph. Olive in vegetable dye is one of the most stable colours in the workshop, so the field will hold its saturation for thirty to forty years before drifting toward bronze.

What you are buying

Patchwork over-dyed carpets at this density and scale list with Western and European dealers between $9,000 and $13,000 when they are available. The piece is offered here at well under half that figure under clearance pricing. The discount is a stock decision rather than a workmanship decision. Like every hand-knotted vegetable-dyed wool carpet, the rug appreciates with use rather than depreciating.

The piece in a room

12' x 15' (366 x 457 cm) suits a long drawing room, a generous open-plan living and dining layout, or a library arranged around a central reading bench. Olive sits well with raw oak floors, with leather and undyed linen, and with brass or unfinished bronze. Off-white walls let the green settle as a quiet ground; deep plaster terracotta walls push the rug toward a Mediterranean register.

Conservation

Rotate a half turn each spring and autumn to age the surface evenly under light and traffic. Vacuum weekly on suction only with the beater bar off. Blot any spill with a dry cotton cloth and lift residue with absorbent paper. Hand-wash by a wool-trained conservator every five to seven years. With this care, the piece holds for eighty to a hundred years.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 366 x 457 cm (12' x 15')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot, vintage panels over-dyed
• Hands: 5 weavers, ~7 months
• Pile: 8 mm
• Dye: vegetable over-dye (indigo, weld, iron)
• Origin: India

Free shipping anywhere in India. Cash on delivery is available. 7-day exchange on the piece.