Blue Anatolian-Pattern Loom-Woven Wool Rug, Kadim Series

The lattice on this rug is a pattern European painters recorded before museums did: interlocking squared links across a deep navy ground, small red eight-pointed stars dropped into the gaps. Examples of the type appear in the paintings of Lorenzo Lotto and in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Kadim series reproduces designs of that kind, and this one is loom-woven in wool on a cotton foundation, 200 × 300 cm (6'7" × 9'10"). Around the field runs a red border laid on a sand-colored ground and strung with small medallions; inside and outside it, narrow running-water bands and a dark green outer frame stack the edges into layers.

01Comes from from Anatolia

That layering is what gives an old Anatolian composition its depth — the eye is stopped three times before it leaves the rug. The wool went through a particular dyeing process before weaving, and the colors came out already looking used: the navy is not new-navy, the red has the dryness of a rug that has been on a floor for decades.

02Which furniture, which room

Beside dark wood and worn leather it looks entirely at home; in a plain white room it becomes the room's only argument. Wool is worked onto a cotton skeleton on the looms at Kütahya, where a machine sets the knots and people finish the piece.

03Knot by knot, by hand

The surface that results is hard to tell from a hand-knotted rug at a glance and easy to tell apart if you turn a corner over: the distinction lies in how the rug was structured, not in anything you can feel through a sock. The pile is low and gives off little lint, which is what makes a design this old practical to actually live with.

04Color that shifts through the day

Professional washing when the time comes. Loom-woven in Kütahya: machine knotting and hand work in the same rug. Wool surface on a cotton foundation. An interlocking squared lattice with red eight-pointed stars on deep navy. Red border on sand with small medallions, running-water bands, dark green outer frame. The wool is dyed to a deliberately aged, rustic tone. 200 × 300 cm — a full-size floor for a large sitting room. Low pile, low lint release. Professional washing. What historical design is the Kadim series based on? The Kadim series reproduces Anatolian rug designs that entered the recorded literature centuries ago.

05After the color

Rugs of this lattice-and-star type were painted by the Renaissance artist Lorenzo Lotto, and examples are held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Why do the colors look aged rather than new? The wool passes through a particular dyeing process before it reaches the loom, which brings the navy, red and green out at the depth an old rug reaches after years of use.

06What the yarn is

It is a finish applied at the yarn stage, not fading in the finished rug. Patterns that a painter thought worth putting in the corner of a portrait have already survived one round of taste, which is more than most floors can claim.