Multicolor Sivas Zara Handwoven Wool Rug, Anadolu Şal Series

Multicolor Sivas Zara Handwoven Wool Rug of the Anadolu Şal Series — a live green ground carrying vertical bands in mustard, orange, navy, burgundy and blue, closed by a red border, 122 × 174 cm (4'0" × 5'9"), knotted by hand in Anatolia from first-grade fleece. A single piece.

Green is unusual as a ground in this series and it changes what the other colors do: warm and cold tones sit in the bands next to each other and the green underneath keeps them from arguing. Each band carries its own small figures, geometric and stylized plant forms both, drawn in the way Zara — a district of Sivas, in central Anatolia — has always drawn them. The red border does the last piece of work, pulling a frame around the bands so that the composition is contained rather than merely busy.

Months of weaving stand behind it, done by women working in the Anatolian tradition. First-grade fleece is what the yarn is, picked for its shine, and that is why the surface has both a natural luster and a firm, full weight when you take hold of it. Rugs in this series are not bought to match a color already in a room — they are bought to put color into one, and against plain modern furniture in wood and gray they read as both current and old. Keep it vacuumed, and let a professional do the rest.

• Hand-knotted in Anatolia by women weaving in the traditional way.
• 122 × 174 cm (4'0" × 5'9") — compact enough for an entrance or a sitting corner.
• Green ground under vertical bands of mustard, orange, navy, burgundy and blue.
• Small geometric and stylized plant figures, drawn after Sivas Zara.
• A red border frames the bands and sharpens the drawing inside them.
• First-grade fleece: soft, with a natural shine and a full weight in the hand.
• Made to bring color into a room, not to agree with one already there.
• Fewer weavers make these each year.

Ten years from now the mustard will have gone a half-tone toward gold, and it will look better then than it does now.