9'10" x 13'6" Pakistani Oushak Rug | Wool | Sage Green and Rust

A rectangular room-size carpet of 9'10" x 13'6", hand-knotted in Pakistan in natural wool. The field is a quiet grey-sage, thinly drawn over with vine and blossom, and the border runs darker, a warm taupe-brown carrying larger flowers in coral and gold. Seen from across a room it reads as a neutral; up close there is a good deal of colour in it.

Design

The Oushak drawing here is open rather than crowded. A thin vine wanders across the field, dropping angular palmettes and eight-point rosettes at wide intervals, with small leaves, buds and stray hooked sprigs filling the gaps between them. No medallion, and no strict repeat: the motifs sit where the weaver placed them, some of them cut by the inner border. The main border alternates broad serrated-leaf palmettes with flowering cups, and is fenced on both sides by narrow ivory guard stripes of reciprocal hooks and small squared blossoms, each outlined in a fine coral line. The ends finish in plain ivory fringe.

Colour

The ground is a soft grey green with the mottling that comes of wool dyed in small lots, lighter in one sweep of the field than another. Against it the flower heads are drawn in rust and coral, in mustard gold, in a chalky pale blue and a faded rose, with olive for the leaves. The border deepens to a greyed brown, which throws the coral forward, while the ivory guard stripes hold the two grounds apart and keep the whole thing from going flat.

Making

Hand-knotted with a pile of natural wool. The folded corner shows an even, moderately fine knotting across the back, with the pattern legible on the reverse, and the pile is clipped low and level throughout. The rug is new and in perfect condition, with full pile at the ends and sides and no repair anywhere in it.