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. What sits in front of you continues that conversation.

The work took 5 weeks at the loom. Two tufters drove the wool through a tensioned canvas with a hand-held tufting gun, building the pattern row by row in a continuous loop. A finisher then sealed the back with natural latex, applied a cotton scrim, and sheared the surface to a uniform pile depth. The borders were bound in cotton tape by hand to hold the edges over decades of use. The rug is offered in a multi register, made in India.

The composition

Colour holds in the multi register. The drawing carries the slight irregularities that hand work produces, with motifs marginally varied across the repeat. Those small departures from machine precision are what make the rug feel alive against an otherwise rectilinear room. The hand of the weaver is visible in the surface, the way a brush stroke is visible in an oil painting. 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 on suction only, weekly. Blot any spill at once with a clean white cloth, working from the edge inward. Light shedding in the first weeks is normal as the loose fibre works free of the pile. A professional cleaning every two to three years maintains both the surface and the latex backing. Avoid steam cleaning, which softens the latex and shortens the life of the construction.

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

Free delivery across India. Cash on delivery accepted. Seven-day exchange window.