8'10" x 11' Turkish Oushak Rug | Apple Green Field with Rust and Blue Lattice | 1980s Hand-Knotted Wool

Green is the colour almost nobody weaves as a full field, which is exactly why this 8'10" x 11' Oushak stops people in the showroom. It was hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation in Turkey during the 1980's, and the whole composition is built on one unbroken apple green ground with rust, blue, gold and ivory drawn across it. The pile is still full and even, the ivory fringe is intact at both ends, and the condition is excellent after decades of careful storage. As a wool pile Oriental rug from a named Anatolian weaving town, it ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The centre of the rug is a wide hexagonal panel outlined in dark brown, with stepped edges that rise to a point at each end. Inside it runs an all-over lattice design of 5 ivory diamond cartouches, each one filled with a blue 8 petal rosette and linked by slender blue stems that branch into rust coloured curled leaves and hooked palmette heads. Smaller blue flowerheads float between the lattice joints, so the field never reads empty despite the open ground. Above and below the panel sit 2 large spandrel areas packed with a fine honeycomb repeat of small gold, blue and green lozenges, a dense counterpoint to the airy centre. The ivory main border carries a procession of dark green serrated leaves alternating with gold and rust vinery, flanked on both sides by barberpole stripes in blue and gold and by narrow guard stripes of blue rosettes on pale green. Every corner is resolved cleanly, with the border drawing turning through all 4 corners without breaking the rhythm.

Apple Green, Rust and Blue

The field is a true vegetal apple green, lighter and warmer than sage, with a faint olive cast where the wool catches the light and a soft natural variation across the open ground that only hand-spun wool gives. Against it the rust tones do the heaviest work: a warm brick to terracotta rust in the curled leaves and palmettes, picked up again in the vine scrolls of the border. The blues range from a medium cornflower in the rosettes to a deeper slate blue in the stems and barberpole stripes, while mustard gold warms the honeycomb panels and the border leaves. Ivory appears in 3 places, in the diamond cartouches, in the ground of the main border and in the fringe, and it is what keeps the composition legible rather than crowded. Dark bottle green outlines the serrated leaves and the brown lines framing the field panel supply the only truly dark note in the rug. Among green Oriental rugs this is an unusually confident palette, and it sits especially well on mid to dark wood floors and against cream or stone walls.

Oushak Weaving in Western Anatolia

Oushak, the town of Usak in western Anatolia, has been one of Turkey's major weaving centres since the 15th century, known for large scale drawing, generous open fields and a glossy, long staple wool that takes dye beautifully and burnishes with use. This 1980's piece belongs to the revival work of the later 20th century, when Oushak workshops returned to the old pattern books while weaving for export in room sizes like this one. The back photograph shows the structure plainly: a cotton warp and weft, straight even rows of symmetrical knots, and clean colour separation with no bleeding, the mark of a weaver working from a proper drawing rather than improvising. The handle is firm but supple, the weave is tight enough to hold the fine honeycomb repeat without blurring, and the pile height is uniform from end to end. At 8'10" x 11' it covers a standard large living room or seats a dining table of 8 with chairs pulled clear, and the wool is robust enough to take that traffic for another generation.