Burgundy Oushak-Pattern Handwoven Wool Rug, Harem Series

Western Anatolia is where this pattern comes from. Oushak has been sending out medallion-and-border drawings since the fifteenth century, and this is a handwoven wool rug in burgundy that takes the old composition and reads it for a room built now.

01The mark of slow weaving

Tied on the Anatolian double knot in a Turkish workshop, made for Halıcızade by Çınhar. Burgundy behaves like two colors depending on where the light comes from. Under a warm bulb it goes red and forward; in daylight from a north window it settles back toward brown and lets the ornament do the talking.

02After the color

The Oushak scrollwork sits on top of that shift without being disturbed by it, because the drawing is built from outlines rather than from washes of color. Green appears in the smaller motifs, which is the note that keeps the whole thing from reading as one deep tone. Erzurum wool again, bright and strong, and the same double knot the workshop has used throughout the Harem series.

03What Silk does

Real Bursa silk turns up in a few pieces of the series — it is rare enough now that even the textile trade sees little of it. What burgundy will not do is disappear: this is a rug that decides the temperature of a room, and if you want the floor to stay quiet you want a different one.

04At the loom in in Anatolia

Professional cleaning; no bleach near it, ever. Handwoven in a Turkish workshop by Çınhar, for Halıcızade. Erzurum wool pile, tied on the Anatolian double knot. Classical Oushak motifs, redrawn rather than reproduced. Burgundy ground with green in the smaller ornament. Real Bursa silk appears in some Harem pieces — it has become scarce. It sets the temperature of a room rather than following it. Clean professionally; keep bleach away from the pile. A single rug, not part of a run. It sits well beside walnut and old leather, and it will outlast both if the double knot does its job.