Black Karabagh-Pattern Hand-Knotted Wool Rug, Şahzade Series

The roses come from Karabagh kilims, where they have been woven for centuries, and here they have been carried across into a knotted pile: a hand-knotted black wool rug with red, orange and pink flower work over the whole ground, made in Afghanistan and offered between 155 × 199 cm and 173 × 240 cm.

Black is an uncommon ground even in flatweave, and it does something specific to those colors. Against cream the same roses would look soft; against black they read at full strength, the orange almost hot, the pink standing clear instead of receding. The drawing is not tidy — the flower heads shift a little from row to row, which is what happens when a weaver carries a pattern in memory rather than reading it off a cartoon. The field is dense with them, so there is no quiet part of this rug.

It is tied with the double knot, symmetrical over two warps, which packs the pile tightly and is the reason a rug like this keeps its surface for decades. The surface is all wool. Below the pile, a cotton warp carries a small synthetic component for strength, and the house names it instead of calling the rug wholly natural. Sizes vary piece by piece because each was woven to the loom rather than to a specification, so the measurements below are a range and not a catalog size.

• Hand-knotted in Afghanistan using the double knot, closed over two warps.
• Wool pile; cotton foundation with a trace of synthetic yarn for strength.
• Black ground with Karabagh rose motifs in red, orange and pink.
• Sizes run from 155 × 199 cm (5'1" × 6'6") to 173 × 240 cm (5'8" × 7'10").
• Motifs shift slightly row to row — the mark of memory rather than a drawn cartoon.
• Karabagh rose drawing belongs to kilim tradition and is unusual in a knotted pile.
• Suits heavy timber furniture, and works as contrast in a plain modern room.
• Professional washing; wool at this density will not dry properly at home.

Put it under an English sofa and it looks inherited; put it in an empty white room and it becomes the reason for the room.