10'4" x 14'2" Soumak Flat Weave Rug | Tribal All-Over Design | Hand-Woven Wool from India

This is a big, flat, hard-wearing wool piece with no pile at all, and it reads completely differently from a knotted rug once it is down on the floor. The surface is tight and slightly ribbed, the drawing is crisp because every motif is built by wrapping wool around the warps rather than clipping it, and the whole 14 foot length sits almost flush with the floor. At 10'4" x 14'2" it covers a full seating group or a 10 seat table without crowding the walls, which puts it squarely in 10 x 14 area rug territory. It is in perfect condition, never used, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming the hand-woven construction, the wool content and the Indian origin.

Design and Motifs

The field is an all-over tribal repeat with no medallion and no open ground: staggered rows of stylized plant figures, each one built from a central stem with hooked arms branching off it, alternating with small 8 point rosettes that sit like beads on a fine connecting lattice. No two rows read the same, because the weaver changed the color of each figure as she went, so a black motif sits beside a gold one, then a blue, then a soft coral. The main border carries large stepped octagonal medallions with star centers, each set in its own panel and separated by ivory and black ground changes, framed inside and out by narrow ivory guard stripes filled with tiny knotted crosses. Outside all of that runs a bold latch-hook running dog band on a red ground, the kind of heavy graphic edge that gives a flat weave its architecture. The ends finish in thick natural cotton fringe.

A Berry Red Ground Carrying Seven Colors at Once

The ground is a deep berry red, a raspberry leaning rather than an orange leaning red, and because there is no pile to catch light the color stays even from end to end instead of shifting with the nap. Against it the motifs run through ivory, warm gold, charcoal black, indigo blue, a dusty rose and a handful of deep greens scattered through the upper rows. The rosettes between the figures are pale ivory and gold, and they act as a light-colored net across the whole field that keeps the red from going heavy. In the borders the palette tightens to indigo, rose pink, ivory and black on red, which is what makes the frame read as a firm dark edge from across the room. The overall impression is warm and saturated, and it sits naturally with walnut and oak furniture, brass, cognac leather and cream walls.

Woven in India in the Soumak Technique

Soumak is a weft-wrapping weave: instead of tying a knot and cutting it, the weaver wraps colored wool forward over several warps and back under a few, row after row, which produces a flat braided-looking face and that distinctive diagonal grain. It is slow work at this scale, and it takes a very steady hand to keep a 10 foot width straight over 14 feet of length, which this one does. It was made in India, which is where most of the world's best contemporary hand-woven work is produced today, by weavers working from Caucasian and tribal pattern books with good handspun wool and a cotton foundation. If you are weighing this against a knotted piece, our guide to what separates a Persian rug from an Oriental rug is worth reading first. A flat weave of this weight lies quiet under furniture, takes traffic well and shows dirt far less than a light pile.