Red Oushak Handwoven Wool Rug, Şahzade Series

Oushak is the name of a town in western Anatolia and of the weaving district around it, and copies of its drawing have been made all over the world since the sixteenth century. This is one of them, made honestly. Red Oushak Handwoven Wool Rug, Şahzade Series — 271 × 371 cm (8'11" × 12'2"), woven by hand in Afghanistan, wool over cotton.

01Up close to the pattern

One piece. What travels out of Oushak is not one motif but a way of laying out a field: large forms, generous spacing between them, a border that frames rather than crowds. Red is the ground the pattern was drawn for, and at ten square meters there is enough of it to set the color of a room instead of accenting it.

02Color, by the light

Under a lamp the red deepens toward brown. In daylight through a north window it lifts, and the drawing comes clearer. Woven in Afghanistan, where the weaving culture runs centuries deep and where a great many Anatolian patterns are now made.

03What the yarn is

Underneath it the structure is cotton, and a modest amount of recycled synthetic thread is worked in with it for strength — declared here rather than left under the word natural. A rug of this scale takes months rather than weeks at the loom.

04When you walk in

It is also too large for most rooms, which is better said before delivery than after: it belongs in a salon or a long hall, with the furniture standing on it rather than around it. Professional washing when it is needed, which will not be often. Handwoven in Afghanistan in the Anatolian Oushak drawing. Wool surface; the structure is cotton, worked with a modest amount of recycled synthetic thread. Oushak is a weaving district in the west of Anatolia, and its field layout has been copied for four hundred years. 271 × 371 cm (8'11" × 12'2") — a little over ten square meters. Red ground: browner by lamplight, clearer in north daylight. Months at the loom rather than weeks. Large enough that furniture should stand on it, not around it. Professional washing, infrequently. The pattern will still be in production in a hundred years; the only question is whether the room it goes into is big enough for it now.