Cream Oushak Handwoven Wool and Viscose Rug, Emirgan Series

Cream Oushak Handwoven Wool and Viscose Rug, Emirgan Series — a pale cream ground carrying the open, large-scale Oushak drawing, woven by hand in the Aegean, in western Türkiye, at 175 × 244 cm (5'9" × 8'0").

01How it feels underfoot

Wool builds the pile and viscose runs through the pattern, where the light is wanted. One piece. Oushak drawing is defined by what it leaves out. The forms are large, the spacing between them is generous, and the border is there to close the field rather than to compete with it — which is why the pattern survives being put on cream instead of the reds and golds it was drawn for. Viscose comes out of cellulose and reflects along the length of the filament, so the passages worked in it sit half a tone above the wool and the drawing lifts clear without a second color being used at all. Some of the finest Turkish rugs have always come off Aegean looms, and fewer people work them with every year that passes.

02From the hand of the weaver

Braiding the ends by hand takes longer than binding them on a machine, and it is why they read as part of the rug rather than as the place it stopped. Four and a third square meters is the size for a seating group with the front legs on.

03Color, by the light

The one real caution is the viscose: it will not take a wet clean at home, and a cream ground of this size hides very little. Vacuum it, and leave water to a professional. Handwoven in the Aegean, western Türkiye. Wool pile, with viscose carried through the drawing. Open, large-scale Oushak forms on a cream ground. Ends braided by hand once the weaving was finished. 175 × 244 cm (5'9" × 8'0") — a seating group, front legs on. Viscose lifts the pattern half a tone above the wool. It cannot be wet-cleaned at home; send it to a specialist. One piece. A cream Oushak wants a room with something dark in it, and sooner or later it finds one.