Cream Oushak Hand-Knotted Wool and Silk Rug, Harem Series

Erzurum fleece and genuine Bursa silk, worked into the same pile: Cream Oushak Hand-Knotted Rug in Wool and Silk, Harem Series — 144 × 193 cm (4'9" × 6'4"), knotted in Türkiye, a cream ground carrying fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Uşak drawing in brown and honey. Cream is the hardest ground to draw an Oushak on, because the pattern has nowhere dark to hide against.

01Up close to the pattern

Everything here is legible: the branch turns, the flower heads, the way the border repeats without quite repeating. The silk sits in the highlights, so the rug is one thing under a window and another under a lamp, and the wool holds the rest steady while the silk moves.

02At the loom in in Türkiye

Beside walnut and unbleached linen it looks domestic; beside anything painted it looks considerably older than it is. Çınhar Halı in Türkiye weaves the Harem series to patterns drawn for this shop, and the firm's own designs have taken prizes outside the country.

03What the yarn is

Its fleece comes out of Erzurum, where enough natural oil stays in the wool to make it strong and bright at once. Its silk is Bursa silk, which now reaches very few looms anywhere. Both are tied with the Anatolian double knot, one knot wrapped around a pair of warp threads — slower to work than the alternative, and cleaner wherever a motif turns a corner.

04The geography of the weave

Send it to a washer who takes silk. Woven by Çınhar Halı in Türkiye, to drawings commissioned by this shop. Erzurum fleece wool with genuine Bursa silk in the highlights. Fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Uşak drawing, redrawn for a modern room. Tied with the Anatolian double knot, around a pair of warp threads. Cream ground with brown and honey drawing, 144 × 193 cm. The silk changes the rug between daylight and lamplight. Specialist washing. A cream Oushak is the one that ends up in the room people are actually shown into.