Cream Oushak Floral Hand-Knotted Wool and Silk Rug, Sultan Series

The Sultan series is no longer woven. What remains of it includes this: a cream rug of 207 × 287 cm (6'9" × 9'5"), worked by hand in Türkiye in wool and silk, its flower motifs taken from the Oushak repertoire and set out in cream, gold-yellow and green.

01How it feels underfoot

Wool makes the ground; silk carries the drawing. The balance of those three colors is the whole design. Cream holds the field, gold-yellow does the work a border color usually does, and green appears only where the flowers need a stem or a leaf — so the pattern reads as a garden in outline rather than a filled one. Matt wool behind and glossy silk in front is an old device in Anatolian weaving, and it is why the flowers seem to sit a little above the ground even though the pile is level.

02What Wool does

It goes as easily with a carved walnut cabinet as with a black metal table, which is unusual for a rug this classical. Wool and silk in the same pile give two things at once: the wool takes the wear and the silk takes the light.

03At the loom in in Türkiye

The knot count is high — the density is what allows a flower this small to be drawn at all — and the series was discontinued, so the number in existence is the number there will be. Silk in a pile is the fiber that shows wear first, which is an argument for keeping this out of a doorway. Washing belongs to a professional. Knotted in Türkiye at a count that few looms still reach. Wool ground with silk in the motifs. Cream, gold-yellow and green; Oushak-derived flower drawing. 207 × 287 cm (6'9" × 9'5") — a seating group, a bedroom or a study. Suits carved wood and plain modern metal equally. Silk shows wear before wool does, so keep it clear of doorways. Professional washing. The Sultan series is out of production; this is one of the remaining pieces. Is the Sultan series still being woven? No.

Production ended, and what is on the shelf is what is left. Each piece was knotted in Türkiye, wool and silk together, at a density that few looms in the country still reach, which is the reason the series was closed rather than continued at a lower standard. Why put silk only in the motifs? Silk reflects light and wool absorbs it, so confining the silk to the drawing makes the pattern appear to stand above the ground.

04From ground to pile

It also puts the more delicate fiber where it is seen and leaves the harder-wearing wool where feet land. A rug from a closed series is worth more to the person who kept it than to the person who bought it, which is usually the same person thirty years apart.