Terracotta Mamluk Loom-Woven Rug, Zade Series

An eight-sided ivory medallion — the Mamluk star — rising out of a terracotta field with fine silver worked inside it: Terracotta Mamluk Loom-Woven Rug, Zade Series. Tencel®, wool and cotton in one surface, woven in Kütahya, 200 × 290 cm (6'7" × 9'6").

01Up close to the pattern

A single piece. Small round forms ring the medallion and finish the geometry, and thin flowers and leaves spread out from it across the terracotta. The Mamluk drawing is centuries old and it survives here without being artificially aged; the silver inside the medallion is the detail that makes it current, since a cool note dropped into a warm ground keeps the terracotta from turning heavy.

02Which furniture, which room

Beside wood-toned older furniture it reads authentic, and in a hotel lobby or in front of a rustic bookcase it reads deliberate. Hidden in the frame is a tree of life, the mark this house puts on the designs it draws itself. Loom-woven is the accurate description.

03Knot by knot, by hand

In Kütahya the loom ties the knots; the ends and the fringes are done afterward by hand. The house says so rather than borrowing the label of a hand-knotted rug. Once the weaving is finished the rugs are carried to homes nearby, and women there knot the fringes individually.

04From ground to pile

Tencel® carries a fine shine, wool carries the warmth and the wear, cotton is the foundation. Under changing light the surface moves between bright and matt. The pile is short, so dust has little to sink into and a vacuum gets through it fast. Loom-woven in Kütahya: machine structure, hand finishing. Tencel®, wool and cotton together in the surface. An ivory Mamluk star medallion with silver detail on a terracotta ground. Fringes finished individually by women in the villages around the workshop. A tree of life hidden in the frame — the Halıcızade mark. Short pile; quick to vacuum. 200 × 290 cm (6'7" × 9'6") — a sitting room, a lobby, a library floor. Deep cleaning goes to a professional. How is a loom-woven rug different from a hand-knotted one? On a loom-woven rug the knots are tied by a mechanical loom and the hand work goes into the finish.

05Coming off the loom

That produces much of the weight and feel a knotted rug has, at a fraction of the weaving hours, and this house would rather name the difference than blur it. What is the Mamluk pattern? Mamluk rugs were woven in Egypt in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and are known for centered geometric compositions built around an eight-sided star medallion.

06Where the Mamluk star comes from

This rug takes that arrangement and works it in terracotta and ivory. Terracotta is the color rooms have been quietly moving toward for a decade, and a Mamluk medallion is the oldest possible way of arriving at it.