Red Vintage Floral Hand-Knotted Wool and Silk Rug, Ayan Series

Nearly ten square meters of it — 274 × 362 cm (9'0" × 11'11"), which is a room rather than a rug. Red Vintage Floral Hand-Knotted Wool and Silk Rug, Ayan Series: small flowers repeated across a red ground in several shades of red, wool and silk knotted by hand over cotton in Pakistan. There is one.

The flowers are drawn fine and set close, in the way an old Anatolian or Persian field is drawn, and the reds inside them are pitched a little apart from the red of the ground, so the whole surface looks like a classical rug that spent thirty summers in the sun and was then brought back. The border repeats the same flowers at higher density and gives the field a hard edge to stop against. Under a dark wood table with leather chairs it is traditional and heavy; against white walls and plain modern furniture the red does the opposite job and becomes the only decision in the room.

The pile is wool, left matt rather than polished, and it warms as it ages instead of wearing shiny; silk in the prominent parts of the pattern gives them a light sheen. The knot is doubled and dense, which is what allows a rug this size to sit in a passage or under a busy table and hold both its shape and its color. Weaving is by hand in Pakistan. Some of the series is made for Halıcızade alone. Measure the floor before ordering: at this size a rug decides the layout of a room rather than fitting into one. Have it washed professionally.

• Knotted by hand in Pakistan, wool and silk pile over a cotton foundation.
• A densely repeated small-flower field in several reds.
• A border repeating the same flowers at higher density.
• Doubled, dense knots — built for passages and busy rooms.
• Matt wool that warms rather than polishes as it wears, with silk highlights in the pattern.
• 274 × 362 cm (9'0" × 11'11") — measure the floor first.
• Have it washed professionally.

At this scale the rug arrives first and the furniture is arranged afterward, which is the correct order and rarely the one anyone plans for.