Gold Vintage-Pattern Handwoven Wool Rug, Retro Series

The motifs come from Oushak in western Anatolia, where this drawing has been documented since the sixteenth century, and they are being knotted today in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The result is a handwoven wool rug of 123 × 174 cm (4'0" × 5'9") in gold, wool pile on a cotton warp, with the pattern pitched low against its ground so it reads worn rather than new. Gold is a hard color to keep from turning brassy, and the way this one avoids it is by carrying two values at once.

The lighter passages fall where the pile turns away from the eye and the darker ones where it turns back, so the whole surface swaps between bright and deep as you walk past. Under a lamp at night the warmer half comes forward and the rug looks closer to honey than to yellow. Each knot is a double knot, tied by hand over a cotton warp, and the rows are packed closely enough that the finished rug stays thin in the hand.

01To make it last

A washing and dyeing stage afterward is what softens the drawing. This is a small rug, and at 123 × 174 cm it will sit at a door, beside a bed or in a narrow kitchen rather than under a sofa.

02The mark of slow weaving

It should be cleaned by a specialist and not put in water at home. Double-knotted by hand in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Wool pile, cotton warp. 123 × 174 cm (4'0" × 5'9") — an entrance size, or a bedside one. Oushak drawing in gold, softened by a finishing wash. Bright from one direction, deep from the other, as the pile turns. Dense rows keep the rug thin enough to run a door over. Specialist cleaning; no home washing. Gold rugs are usually loud.

03Reading the motif

This one spends its color slowly, and in ten years the pattern will have gone another shade quieter.