5'9" x 8'10" Indian Transitional Rug | Wool and Silk | Ivory and Beige

A 5'9" x 8'10" rug knotted by hand in India, with a pile of wool and silk. The whole surface works in one narrow band of colour: an ivory ground carrying an all-over lattice drawn in sand and apricot, with the silk picking out small flowers in a paler, brighter cream. From a few feet away the pattern reads almost as texture rather than as contrast, and the relief in the close-up photographs shows why, the silk sitting slightly higher and catching light where the wool does not.

Design

The field is a continuous ogival lattice, each compartment framed by a triple line and filled with a small upright spray of blossoms rising from a stem, with rosettes and curling leaves in the spaces between. There is no medallion and no open ground: the repeat runs edge to edge and is cut by the border rather than resolved, which is the usual transitional handling of a classical layout. The main border carries a meandering vine with star flowers and small palmettes, set between narrow guard stripes of linked rosettes and diamond blocks. Corners are drawn rather than mechanically mitred, and the border pattern turns cleanly at each end, visible in the corner photograph above the fringe.

Colour

Two tones do nearly all the work. The ground is ivory going to warm beige, closer to oatmeal where the wool takes the light, and the drawing over it is a soft apricot that deepens to a dry terracotta along the outlines of the lattice and through the border vine. Silk supplies the third note, a chalky white that is not a separate colour so much as a change of surface, brightening the flower heads and the small leaves. There is no black, no blue, nothing to interrupt. Against grey flooring the rug looks cooler and sandier; against oak, as in the room photograph, it warms toward biscuit.

Making

The rug is hand-knotted, with a wool pile carrying silk in the pattern areas, which is what gives the field its two-level surface. The reverse, shown with one corner folded back, is even and close, and the pattern reads clearly through to the back. It is rectangular, finished with a plain selvedge and cream fringe at both ends, and the table records it as new and in perfect condition.