Oxidised dyeing is one of the more recent additions to the Indian rug vocabulary. The wool is dyed in the standard small-lot vegetable process and then exposed in controlled conditions to oxygen and humidity until the surface tones break down by a measurable percentage. What survives the oxidation reads like an antique that has been on the floor for fifty years rather than five months. The brown in this rug is the result of that controlled chemistry.

Three weavers shared the loom in India for around five months. The pile is hand-spun wool with mulberry silk highlight passes, all tied with the Persian asymmetric knot against a cotton foundation. The wool was first dyed in copper vats from walnut hull, oak gall, and madder, then exposed to humid oxygen for ten to fourteen days until the surface tones lost roughly twenty percent of their original saturation. The result is a field that looks lived in from the day it leaves the loom.

The composition

An abstract field in soft brown that runs from warm chocolate at the centre to dust brown at the edges. Silk highlight passes drop in at irregular intervals and read almost like brushstrokes against the matte wool. There is no border. The drawing runs to the selvedge. Under direct sunlight the silk catches and the wool deepens; in lamplight the field collapses into a single warm tone with the silk highlights sitting just above it.

What you are buying

An oxidised wool and silk rug at this scale and drawing standard sells through Western design dealers in the bracket of twelve to twenty-eight thousand US dollars depending on attribution. This is a contemporary weaving made in India to the same construction and in the same fibre. A rug in this category appreciates with use rather than depreciating. The oxidised surface continues to mellow over the first decade and the silk highlights soften into a quieter sheen.

The piece in a room

8' x 10' (244 x 305 cm) anchors a primary lounge or a moderately scaled drawing room. The brown palette pairs with walnut and dark oak, with brass and antique bronze, with leather upholstery in the cognac and chocolate spectrum, and with limewashed plaster walls. North-facing rooms benefit because the warm field carries the heat work that the cool ambient light cannot.

Conservation

Quarter-turn the rug each spring and autumn so the brown ages uniformly. Vacuum weekly using suction alone with a soft hand attachment. Beater bars are not used on wool and silk pile at any cleaning frequency. Blot spills with a clean white cotton cloth on contact and never rub the pile. A wool-and-silk conservator should hand wash the rug every five years. Treated this way the piece has a working life of seventy to eighty years.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool and silk on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 244 x 305 cm (8' x 10')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3 weavers, ~5 months
• Pile: hand-spun wool with mulberry silk highlights, oxidised finish
• Dye: vegetable (walnut, oak gall, madder), oxygen exposed
• Origin: India

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