6' x 8'9" Indian Oushak Rug | Wool | Slate Grey and Sand

A wool rug knotted by hand in India, measuring 6' x 8'9" in a rectangular format. The field is a pale slate grey carrying five ivory diamonds, and the whole thing is held inside a wide sand border with grey-green scrollwork. Seen from across a room it reads as a quiet pattern rather than a loud one, which is what the low contrast between field and ornament is doing.

Design

The field sits inside a stepped, octagonal outline and holds five ivory diamonds set two, one, two, each one filled with small palmettes and rosettes and centred on a square. Between them the grey ground is scattered with eight-petalled flowers, curling vine tips and small leaf sprays, and half-diamonds break the field edge at top and bottom. Three bands make up the frame: a narrow guard of tiny crosses, a sand band of upright tulip and leaf heads, and the main ivory border of linked hooked scrolls with stars and small diamonds dropped between them, a drawing typical of the Oushak vocabulary. The corners resolve the scroll cleanly rather than cutting it off mid-turn.

Colour

The ground is a light slate grey with a distinct green cast, cool enough to sit against warm oak floors without matching them. Against it the diamonds are undyed ivory and the border ground a paler cream, while the middle band and much of the field ornament run through sand, camel and a soft apricot. The scrollwork is outlined in a deeper grey-green, the darkest note in the rug and the thing that gives the border its structure. Close up the pile shows gentle abrash across the field, lighter in places where the wool took the dye differently.

Making

Hand-knotted with a wool pile, with the back showing an even, legible knot and the fringe finished plain at both ends. The rug is new and in perfect condition, with full pile and no repairs, and the label sewn to the back records it as made in India. It sits among the hand-knotted rugs we stock from the workshops that weave Turkish designs on Indian looms.