11'10" x 14'10" Pakistani Oushak Rug | Wool | Sage Green and Gold

A rectangular carpet measuring 11'10" x 14'10", knotted in Pakistan in the Oushak manner, with a pile of natural fine Ghazni wool. Seen whole, it reads as a pale sand field carrying a loose allover pattern in brown and coral, held inside a wide light green border. The drawing is large in scale and thinly spaced, so at room distance the ground colour does most of the work.

Design

The field runs on a faint diagonal trellis, drawn in a yellow barely darker than the ground, and hung on it are two repeating elements: long scrolling brackets in soft brown outlined in brick red, curling back on themselves in mirrored pairs, and upright palmettes with fanned red stamens sitting on pale green cups. Between them sit clusters of small coral four-petal blossoms, single teal-green rosettes and tiny hooked leaf forms scattered loose across the ground. The main border, set off by a narrow gold guard striped with squared rosettes, carries a chain of linked ivory cartouches on the green ground, each joined by a broad lotus palmette in coral and red with a small teal heart. Corners are resolved rather than cut, and the same guard stripe repeats on the outer edge.

Colour

The field is a warm sand, closer to beige in the open areas and lifting toward gold where the light runs along the pile. Against it the bracket scrolls are a soft brown with a coppery edge, drawn with thin brick red outlines that give the pattern its definition. The border's light sage green is the one cool note in the rug and it does a lot: it frames the warm field without competing with it, and the small teal flowerheads scattered through the centre echo it back across the whole surface. Nothing here is saturated; the coral reads pink in flat light and rust in raking light.

Making

The rug is hand-knotted throughout, with a pile of natural fine Ghazni wool, a long-stapled highland wool that takes dye evenly and holds a slight sheen, visible in the angled shots where the nap turns. The reverse, shown folded back, gives a clear grid of knots and the pattern reading as crisply from the back as from the face. The table records this rug as new and the condition as perfect: full pile, straight sides, and the warp ends finished as plain ivory fringe at both ends.