Blue Anatolian Medallion Hand-Knotted Wool Rug, Hümayun Series

A medallion sits at the center and holds the whole rug together, drawn from Anatolian and Middle Eastern sources and worked in modern blues rather than the old ones. Hand-knotted in India: wool and cotton in the ground, viscose through the motifs where it shines like silk, and the pattern cut into relief by hand with shears.

01How many centimeters, which room

Five sizes, and the biggest of them is 250 × 350 cm (8'2" × 11'6"). Two traditions meet in the drawing and neither wins. The Anatolian half supplies the medallion and the framing bands; the Middle Eastern half supplies the density of the small ornament between them.

02The rule of care

The blues are current rather than antique — a cooler, cleaner range than a nineteenth-century rug would use — and the effect is that an old composition reads as a new object. Where the viscose runs, the pattern catches light and lifts off the wool around it, so the medallion appears to sit slightly above its own ground. Knot density is high, which is the only reason ornament this fine survives being woven at all, and the carving afterward is what gives the relief.

Both are hand operations and both take time. The rug does its best work where people arrive rather than where they settle — an entrance hall, a study, a room where one object is expected to carry the space. Hand-knotted in India for Halıcızade. Wool and cotton in the ground, viscose worked through the motifs for shine. Anatolian medallion with Middle Eastern ornament, in contemporary blues. The pattern is carved into relief by hand with shears after weaving. High knot density, which is what keeps the fine ornament readable. Five sizes, from 125 × 185 cm to 250 × 350 cm. Washing by a specialist, and no home shampoo on the viscose. Rugs built around a single medallion get harder to move as the years pass, because a room ends up arranged around the middle of them.