Cream Oushak Hand-Knotted Wool Rug, Harem Series

At 132 × 168 cm (4'4" × 5'6") this one is close to square, which is rare in a knotted rug and useful in a room that is: Cream Oushak Hand-Knotted Wool Rug, Harem Series — knotted in Türkiye from Erzurum wool, cream ground, classical Uşak drawing worked at a modern scale. A near-square rug behaves differently.

01Which furniture, which room

Nothing about it points anywhere, so it will not tell you which way the furniture should face, and under a round table or in a square hall it settles where a long rug would look stranded. The drawing helps: the Oushak motifs are set out symmetrically, so there is no head and no foot to the piece.

02What the yarn is

The pattern is carried in warmer tones and is easiest to read from directly above, which is the angle a square rug is usually seen from anyway. Erzurum wool is what goes into it, bright and soft and strong at once, which is a combination that rarely turns up in one fleece.

03The mark of slow weaving

The knotting is the Anatolian double knot, worked symmetrically around two warp threads, which takes longer per row and holds the drawing crisper at the turns. The whole rug was made in Türkiye.

04Reading the motif

Contemporary readings of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Uşak motifs are what the Harem series is for, and this is one of the plainer ones. Professional washing. Hand-knotted in Türkiye from Erzurum wool. Nearly square at 132 × 168 cm, with no direction to the drawing. Symmetrical Uşak motifs on a cream ground, drawn at a modern scale. Double-knotted around two warps, which sharpens the turns in the pattern. Erzurum fleece: bright, soft and strong at once. Suits a square hall, a round table or a room without a long axis. Professional washing. Square rooms are usually furnished as though they were rectangular; this is the rug that lets them stop.