Mink Oushak-Pattern Handwoven Wool Rug, Şahzade Series

Mink is the color Turkish sellers call vizon: a grayed beige with a trace of pink in it, neither warm enough nor cool enough to argue with anything else in a room. Here it is the ground under an Oushak drawing, handwoven in wool in Afghanistan, 154 × 207 cm (5'1" × 6'9"), with cotton and synthetic yarn declared alongside. Three square meters, one piece. Oushak patterns were built for madder red and yellow, so seeing one on a mink ground is a deliberate flattening of a design made to be loud.

01The origin of the pattern

What survives that treatment is the geometry: the large-scale floral repeat, the wide border, the corner pieces that answer each other diagonally. What goes is the contrast, and with it most of the pattern's period signal — this reads as a modern rug at ten paces and as a five-hundred-year-old drawing at one. Woven by hand in Afghanistan, in the classical Anatolian repertoire that has been made there for the export trade for a long time now.

02From ground to pile

Wool, cotton and synthetic yarn are all on the label. A pale-to-middling ground of this kind will show a traffic path within a couple of years if the rug sits between a door and a sofa, and rotating it 180 degrees once a year is the whole of the maintenance advice anyone can honestly give.

03After the color

Professional washing beyond that. Handwoven in Afghanistan in the Oushak repertoire. Wool with cotton and synthetic yarn, as the house lists them. 154 × 207 cm (5'1" × 6'9"), 3.2 square meters. Mink — vizon in Turkish — is a grayed beige with a trace of pink. A mid-tone ground will show a traffic path; turn the rug once a year. Professional washing. One piece. It is the version of a classical rug for someone who wants the drawing without the argument that usually comes with it. This rug belongs to the Şahzade Series.