9'2" x 12'1" Indian Modern Rug | Wool and Silk | Burgundy

A rectangular carpet of 9'2" x 12'1", hand-knotted in India in wool with silk carrying the drawn line. There is no border. The burgundy ground runs from selvedge to selvedge and a single pale vine travels across it in wide loops, hung with flowers and buds. Seen from the end of the room it reads as one dark field with a light tracery laid over the top, which is unusual among the hand-knotted rugs that come out of India at this size.

The design

The vine is set out as eight large circles, paired off across the width and joined at the waist by small flat palmettes with a diamond cut out of the centre. Inside each circle sits a single broad rosette of seven or eight lobes, drawn with a fine dark line down each petal, and beside it a pair of curling tendrils that hook away from the stem like commas. Where the vine reaches the edge it drops a closed tulip bud, and these buds are cut through by the selvedge at top, bottom and both sides, so the pattern clearly continues past the rug rather than stopping at it. That borderless treatment is what places it among modern work rather than with the classical layouts, even though every motif in it is an old one.

The colour

The ground is burgundy, a deep blue-leaning red that lightens to something closer to garnet where the pile lies away from the camera and darkens almost to plum in the folds. Against it the flowers are not one colour but several: some rosettes are near-white cream and beige, others a warmer tan, and the tulips along the edges are a clear gold with more yellow in them than the rosettes have. The connecting stem sits between the two, an ivory line thin enough that in places it is barely wider than a few knots. Because the light colours vary from one circle to the next, the field keeps moving instead of settling into a fixed repeat.

The making

Hand-knotted in India, wool pile with silk used in the flowers and stems, which is where the sheen in the close photographs comes from. The fold in image nine shows a dense, even back and a short level clip. It is new and in perfect condition, with no wear to the pile and no repair to the ends or sides. At 9'2" x 12'1" it falls in the 8x10 to 10x14 range, a room-size piece for a dining table or a full seating group.