Anthracite Oushak Handwoven Wool Rug, Safir Series

Oushak — Uşak on a Turkish map — is a town in western Anatolia, and the drawings that carry its name have been copied for four hundred years: large open medallions, wide spacing, a short list of colors.

01From ground to pile

Anthracite Oushak Handwoven Wool Rug, Safir Series: an Oushak field in anthracite, handwoven from wool with bamboo viscose over a cotton foundation, 160 × 240 cm (5'3" × 7'10"). What makes an Oushak drawing recognizable is what it leaves out.

02After the color

The motifs are large, the ground between them is wide, and the palette is short — historically madder red with a soft yellow, and in the modern versions any two or three tones that will hold that spacing.

03What Wool does

Anthracite is the current answer: dark enough for the open ground to read as depth, gray enough not to become a hole in the middle of a room. Handwoven in India for Halıcızade, from wool with bamboo viscose worked in, on a cotton foundation. Bamboo viscose is the house name for the cellulose filament sometimes sold as bamboo silk, and it goes into the motifs to give them a return of light that wool does not have. Safir is the Turkish word for sapphire, and the series keeps the Turkish.

04Color, by the light

An anthracite ground shows pale lint and a filament content shows a track; that is what the effect asks in return, and both brush out. Professional washing. Handwoven in India for Halıcızade. Wool carrying bamboo viscose through the motifs, over cotton. Oushak drawing — large motifs, wide open ground, a short palette. Anthracite ground, 160 × 240 cm (5'3" × 7'10"). Bamboo viscose is a cellulose filament, sometimes sold as bamboo silk; the house calls it what it is. Pale lint shows on anthracite and pressure marks show on the filament passages. Professional washing. A single rug in this size and color. What is an Oushak pattern? Oushak is the English name for Uşak, a town in western Anatolia.

05What the yarn is

Rugs drawn in its manner use large medallions, generous space between them and a deliberately short palette, and workshops far outside Anatolia have been copying it since the sixteenth century. Is bamboo viscose the same as silk? No. Bamboo viscose is a cellulose filament, spun rather than reeled from a cocoon, and it is sometimes marketed as bamboo silk. It returns light in a similar way, which is why it is used for motifs, but it is a different fiber and this house names it as viscose. Oushak drawings survived four centuries because they leave room to put furniture on, which is harder to design than a full field.