The hunting rug is a Safavid invention. Court weavers in sixteenth-century Iran repurposed the formal medallion field as a stage for figural narrative, leopards chasing antelope, hunters drawing bows, paradisical trees holding the corners. The form has survived in the workshop tradition because the figural challenge is a test of weaver skill.

Two weavers shared the loom for five to six months. About 1.0 million knots tied row by row from a paper cartoon. Wool was hand-spun and plant-dyed in small batches before weaving began.

The composition

Rust and navy grounds the composition. The design works against this register rather than competing with it, which is the older discipline in rug making. The colour was prepared in copper vats from plant sources, and the slight shifts in saturation across the field are the trace of small-batch dyeing rather than any lapse in the workshop process. The colour will deepen by half a stop across the first year as the wool oxidises against ambient light, and another half stop across the next decade of use.

What you are buying

Look at the auction record. Carpets of this lineage, scale and knot density carry attribution premiums that put antique pieces well past this number. This is a new weaving by a workshop trained in the same vocabulary, and it appreciates with use rather than depreciating, which is the only property of its kind in domestic furnishing.

The piece in a room

At 5' x 8' the piece works as the conversation floor of a contemporary flat. The composition extends past the front of the seating arrangement, with enough margin between sofa edge and rug border that the design reads whole. Pairs naturally with brass, walnut, and brushed bronze; reads cleanly against pale lime-washed walls.

Conservation

Rotate a half turn each spring and autumn so light and traffic age the rug evenly across both ends of the field. Vacuum weekly with suction only, the beater bar disengaged. Blot spills with a clean dry cotton cloth and work from the outside in; never rub or scrub. Hand-wash by a wool-trained conservator every five to seven years to clear the foundation and refresh the dye. With this care the rug runs sixty to a hundred years and outlives its first owner.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 5' x 8' (152 x 244 cm)
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot, hand-tied row by row
• Knot count: approximately 1.0 million knots
• Hands: 2 weavers, five to six months
• Pile: 8 to 10 mm, hand-spun wool
• Dye: vegetable, small-batch copper-vat process
• Origin: India

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