Navy Medallion Oushak Hand-Knotted Wool Rug

Oushak, in western Anatolia, has been drawing medallion rugs since the fifteenth century. This is a hand-knotted wool piece worked in that tradition: a deep navy ground, one large medallion in orange and green, a cream border, 173 × 244 cm (5'8" × 8'0"), on a cotton foundation.

The medallion at the middle is not an Oushak motif, though. It is called İran Bahtiyari, and the Halıcızade design team found it in the rug literature and put it back on a loom; the name carries the sense of taking one's fortune as a companion and making peace with it. Orange and green fill the medallion's interior, and against the navy they read almost as lit figures. Cream in the border is what stops the field from closing up. In a room with a single lamp the navy goes to a dark rectangle and the medallion is largely lost — this wants daylight, or several light sources.

Wool pile on a cotton foundation, tied with a double knot, which is why the pile stands rather than lies over. Along the border runs a small tree of life, the mark Halıcızade puts on rugs made for the house and the quickest way to tell one. The dyeing was done to leave tone variation rather than remove it, so the navy is not one navy: it moves a shade lighter and darker across the field as the light crosses it. It should be washed by a rug workshop and not at home.

• Hand-knotted on the double knot; wool pile over a cotton foundation.
• Navy ground, one central medallion in orange and green, cream border.
• The medallion is İran Bahtiyari, recovered from the rug literature and redrawn for this house.
• A tree of life along the border marks it as made for Halıcızade.
• 173 × 244 cm (5'8" × 8'0") — a salon, a library, or a room that is used quietly.
• Tone shifts across the navy field come from the dyeing, not from a fault.
• Professional washing only.

It is a dark rug, and dark rugs improve with the furniture around them rather than in spite of it.