Cream Floral Handwoven Silk Rug, Nahar Series

Nine parts silk to one part wool: that ratio is the argument of this handwoven cream rug, 162 × 240 cm (5'4" × 7'10"), knotted in China across several months and drawn with symmetrical flower motifs running the length of its frame.

01The Wool on the surface

The wool is in it for body; everything you see is silk. The pattern is no longer being made. Cream is a difficult ground because it gives a pattern nothing to push against, so the drawing here is symmetrical and thin rather than bold — a repeating flower held inside a frame, with the field left open between repeats. In daylight the silk returns light instead of absorbing it and the ground looks lit from beneath.

02The origin of the pattern

Toward evening it goes ivory, and the flowers, barely a tone darker, all but disappear. It behaves the way a pale silk shawl behaves, for the same reason. Knots in the hundreds of thousands, set by hand in China, over a production counted in months rather than weeks.

03From ground to pile

About ninety percent of the yarn is silk and roughly ten percent wool, and the wool gives the pile enough spring to stand up under a chair leg, which silk at this fineness will not do on its own.

04Coming off the loom

The workshop has stopped weaving this design, so the pieces in circulation are the pieces that exist. It is fine and thin and it wants a floor without heavy traffic. Cleaning: professional only. Roughly 90% silk with about 10% wool, hand-knotted in China. Months at the loom; hundreds of thousands of knots. Cream ground with symmetrical flower motifs set along the frame. 162 × 240 cm (5'4" × 7'10") — a dining room, a seating corner, a bedroom. Very fine and thin; better away from a busy route through the house. Out of production; this design is not being rewoven. Professional cleaning only. A single piece. Rugs like this were once ordinary in the trade and are now scarce, which changes nothing about how it looks and everything about how it should be treated.