Black Floral Karabagh Hand-Knotted Wool Rug

Black is an unusual ground for a Karabagh drawing, and it is the first thing worth saying about this hand-knotted wool rug: floral forms set on a field with no light in it, 126 × 183 cm (4'2" × 6'0"), knotted in Afghanistan.

01What the yarn is

Wool above, cotton below. One piece, at this size, in this color. Karabagh is a rug name from the southern Caucasus, and the drawing has long since left the place that named it. The field here is filled from edge to edge with floral forms rather than organized around a center, so nothing in the composition announces which end is the top.

02A line from the archive

On a dark ground that matters more than it would on cream: with no medallion to catch the eye, the pattern reads as texture at standing height and breaks apart into single flowers only if you crouch over it. The surface is wool the whole way across.

03How it feels underfoot

Underneath, the warp and weft are cotton with a little synthetic thread spun in to stiffen them; the house prefers to declare that instead of describing the whole rug as pure wool, since the foundation carries the load. Black wool has one honest drawback and it is lint: pale fibers, hair and dust show against it in a way they never show on a mid-tone rug, and a dark floor is where a skipped vacuum announces itself. Cleaning belongs with a rug washer. Hand-knotted in Afghanistan. Wool pile on a cotton foundation, with a trace of synthetic yarn in the foundation. Karabagh floral drawing worked across the whole field, without a central medallion. 126 × 183 cm (4'2" × 6'0"), about 2.3 square meters — an entrance, a study, or beside a bed. Black ground: strong contrast, and it shows lint. Professional washing only. A single piece; there is no second one to order. A dark rug does the opposite of what a pale one does — it takes the floor out of the argument, and whatever stands on top of it becomes the thing you look at.