Gray Damask Hand-Knotted Wool Rug

The figures are bamboo viscose and the ground is wool and cotton, which is why the damask stands slightly proud of the surface. Gray Damask Hand-Knotted Wool Rug, 171 × 236 cm (5'7" × 7'9"), knotted in India over a cotton foundation, gray with pastel shading inside the pattern. A single piece. The relief is not stamped or cut by machine.

01The origin of the pattern

It comes from the way two different yarns take up the beating, and the outline of each figure ends up sitting above the field by a millimeter or so — enough that you can follow the pattern across the rug with your eyes shut. Gray keeps all of it quiet.

02From ground to pile

Beside white, beige and light walnut the rug disappears into a scheme; against black, anthracite or dark timber it becomes the lightest thing in the room. Cotton makes the foundation, wool and cotton the surface, bamboo viscose the pattern — three fibers doing three separate jobs, which is what the knot density is paying for.

03Coming off the loom

Every knot was tied by hand in India for this shop. Damask is one of the very few historical patterns that has never fallen out of use in interiors, so the risk of it dating is small; the risk with a pale gray is spills, and it is a real one.

04What Wool does

Take it to a washer rather than treating it at home. Hand-knotted in India on a cotton foundation. A wool-and-cotton pile with the pattern picked out in bamboo viscose. The pattern stands in slight relief and can be felt with a palm. Gray with pastel shading, easy beside both pale wood and black. 171 × 236 cm (5'7" × 7'9") — a mid-sized sitting room or the foot of a bed. Spills show on a pale gray; deal with them promptly. Washed by a rug workshop, never at home. Matching damask at the windows will make the room look composed; leaving the rug on its own will make it look chosen.