Anthracite Plain Handwoven Viscose Rug

Most rugs with this much shine take a footprint and keep it. This one does not, and that is the useful fact about it: a plain anthracite rug handwoven in India, 80% viscose over a 20% cotton foundation, weighing 3,300 g/m² at a 5 mm pile, flecked throughout with silver gray.

01How many centimeters, which room

It is made in several sizes. Flecking is what saves a plain dark rug from looking like a hole in the floor. The lighter threads are distributed evenly, so the color runs between silver and anthracite across the whole field and no two square meters look quite alike.

02The origin of the pattern

There is no motif, no contrast, nothing drawn — the interest lies entirely in how the surface answers light, and it answers differently from each side of the room. In a spare modern room it supplies plainness with something in it; in a more classical one it is the quiet floor that holds everything else together. Viscose comes off the cellulose of a plant and handles light in the manner of silk, and that is where the sheen originates.

03What the yarn is

Cotton in the foundation is what gives the fabric its softness under the hand. At 3,300 g/m² this is a heavy rug for a 5 mm pile — dense rather than deep — and that density is why the surface springs back instead of recording where you walked. It sheds very little in ordinary use. Handwoven in India by traditional weavers. The fiber is 80% viscose and 20% cotton. It weighs 3,300 g/m², heavy for its thickness. A 5 mm pile: low, dense and comfortable underfoot. Silver-gray flecking through an anthracite ground, with no applied pattern. The sheen changes with the angle you look from. Holds no footmarks, which is unusual for a lustrous fiber. Made in several sizes.

04How it is protected

Cleaning is specialist work. A plain rug has to earn its place with nothing but its surface, and few of them can.