Brown Versace-Pattern Handwoven Silk Rug, Versace Series

Two hundred by three hundred centimeters — 6'7" × 9'10" — makes this a full salon rug, and it was drawn as one: a handwoven piece in brown and gold whose medallion and framing bands are worked in pure silk over a wool ground.

01Up close to the pattern

The symmetry comes from Roman architecture, which is where the pattern family gets its measured intervals. Woven in small numbers for this house. A central medallion holds the field and the border repeats its logic at a smaller scale, so the composition reads the same from three meters away and from arm's length.

02The Wool on the surface

Gold sits inside brown rather than beside it, and the two only separate under direct light — which is exactly when the silk declares itself, because silk and wool reflect at different angles and the motifs come forward while the ground stays put. The surface is smooth to the hand, thick without being spongy. The silk in the motifs is pure silk and does the shining; the wool underneath does the wearing. That division has a consequence worth stating plainly: silk-worked motifs mark more readily than the wool around them, and they must never meet a household shampoo.

03Where it is laid

This is a rug for a room with a table in the middle of it and chairs at the edges, not for a corridor. Specialist washing, and a pad underneath so the foundation is not ground against the floor. Handwoven for Halıcızade in small numbers. Pure silk through the motifs, wool through the ground. Central medallion with a border that repeats the drawing at smaller scale. Brown and gold, separating only under direct light. 200 × 300 cm (6'7" × 9'10") — a salon, dining room or wide entrance. Silk motifs mark more easily than wool; no home shampoo. Specialist washing, and a pad beneath it. One of one. It was built to sit under bronze, gilt and carved wood, and it looks slightly underemployed anywhere else.