Purple Frame-Pattern Hand-Knotted Silk-Blend Rug

Hundreds of thousands of knots inside a piece measuring 53 × 67 cm (1'9" × 2'2"). It is hand-knotted in China from silk, cotton and viscose, with classical drawing in gold and cream over a purple ground and a cream border holding the edges. Purple is the rarest ground color in classical rug weaving and it behaves oddly under light — from one angle it is bright and almost lit, from another it goes deep and nearly black.

01A line from the archive

The gold and cream motifs stay constant through that change, which means the same rug looks like two different objects at different hours of the day. Cream and beige along the border are the counterweight, keeping the density of the purple from closing in on itself. Knotted entirely by hand in China from silk, cotton and viscose.

02Coming off the loom

At this scale the knot count is what the piece actually is: the drawing is only possible because each knot is small enough to describe a curve, and a rug of 53 × 67 cm containing several hundred thousand of them is a demonstration more than a floor covering. Realistically it belongs at a door, beside a bed, or on a wall — too small to be a room's rug and too fine to be treated as a mat.

03What Silk does

Professional washing. Hand-knotted in China from silk, cotton and viscose. Several hundred thousand knots inside a piece of 53 × 67 cm (1'9" × 2'2"). Purple ground carrying classical motifs in gold and cream. A cream and beige border set against the density of the purple. The purple shifts between bright and near-black depending on the angle of the light. Thin and light; it suits a doorway, a bedside, or a wall. Professional washing. Small enough to hang, and fine enough to be worth hanging.