Burgundy Anatolian Hand-Knotted Wool Derinkuyu Rug, Second-Hand

Derinkuyu is a town in Nevşehir province, in Cappadocia, best known for the underground city cut into the soft tufa beneath it. This rug came from there and has been owned before: hand-knotted in root-dyed wool, spun on a hand spindle, drawn in the Anatolian manner, 136 × 222 cm (4'6" × 7'3"). Second-hand is stated plainly, because on a rug of this kind it is not a defect and pretending otherwise would be the only real problem.

01Knot by knot, by hand

A knotted wool floor improves across the first twenty or thirty years of use: the pile settles, the surface gains a sheen, and root dyes lose the rawness that a new red has. What it also does over those years is wear, unevenly, in the places people walked. Both of those things are on this rug and neither has been corrected. Cappadocian village weaving is wool from end to end and counted rather than copied — the weaver holds the pattern in her head and puts it down knot by knot, which is why the two ends of a piece like this never carry exactly the same width of border.

02The mark of slow weaving

Its yarn was hand-spun on a kirmen spindle, so the thickness varies from meter to meter and takes dye at slightly different strengths along its length. That is what produces abrash, the horizontal banding across the field. Professional washing only, with the dyes tested before any water goes near them. Hand-knotted in wool in Derinkuyu, Nevşehir, in Cappadocia. Wool throughout — pile, warp and weft. Hand-spindle-spun yarn and root dyes, with abrash across the field. Anatolian drawing, held in the weaver's head and never put on paper. 136 × 222 cm (4'6" × 7'3"). Previously owned and used; the wear is visible and has been left alone. Professional washing, with the dyes tested first. One piece, among the house's rare listings. Rugs like this leave Anatolian villages once and do not go back, which is the whole reason it is here.