Yellow Framed Medallion Vintage Hand-Knotted Wool Rug

Like a document left too long in a window: the yellow on this rug has the quality of something faded rather than dyed, though it was in fact dyed, twice. A hand-knotted Anatolian wool rug of 148 × 260 cm (4'10" × 8'6"), medallion and frame intact, sheared thin and re-colored. One piece.

Old rugs take a second dye unevenly, because the original colors are still under it and each of them absorbs differently. That is why the field here has drift in it — deeper where the old ground was dark, paler where it was light — and it is the reason two rugs put through this process never come out matching. The medallion and its frame survived the treatment intact, so the composition is the one the original weaver drew; only the color is ours.

The pile is wool and the warps are cotton. Thinning has made the rug light and flexible, and a flexible rug lies flatter over an uneven floor than a stiff one does. Because it is a reworked piece rather than a new one, it carries small asymmetries — a border that runs a knot wide in one corner, a tone that changes across the width. Have it washed professionally, and not often.

• Knotted by hand in Anatolia, then sheared and put through a second dye.
• Wool pile on cotton warps.
• Medallion and frame preserved from the original drawing.
• Uneven dye uptake — the old colors underneath decide where the yellow goes deep.
• Small asymmetries in border and tone; they came with the rug.
• 148 × 260 cm (4'10" × 8'6") — a sitting room, a study, a wide landing.
• Professional washing, infrequently.
• One rug, and the process cannot repeat it.

Nobody has yet found a way to make a new rug look like this, which is why old ones keep being taken apart and put back together.