Oxiana | 156 x 153 cm | Nr. Z-1287

Mottled, round Oxiana, rust red with stripes and diamonds

Origin	Pakistan
Diameter	156 cm (= 2.39 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes) Weft & Warp: cotton
knots per m²2	160.000
Pile height	7mm
Year of manufacture	2022
Colour	Rust red, light green
Edition	one-of-a-kind piece

Origin

The pattern of this hand-knotted Oxiana rug takes its cue from traditional Uzbek designs. Rugs with a similar pattern were originally knotted above all in the region around Samarkand and Oxiana. Our Oxiana rugs are tuned to contemporary taste: harmonious colour compositions in natural dyes flatter the traditional pattern. Colourful horizontal stripes run across the Oxiana rugs, alternating with imaginatively patterned sections. The patterned parts show geometric compositions that recall a Kazak pattern. Another characteristic feature is that the fringes are gathered into small bundles and wrapped with threads in different colours.

Pattern

The straight stripes of this Oxiana order and structure the pattern.

The surface of this Oxiana has a mottled look. The shifts in tone and the light-and-dark shading of the pile yarn make the colours shimmer and keep the rug forgiving of dirt. These so-called colour jumps, known as abrash, give the rug a livelier appearance. The mottling occurs because the wool of this Oxiana was hand-spun. During dyeing, the natural dyes are absorbed to differing degrees.

In the pattern of this Oxiana it is the diamonds in particular that catch the eye. A diamond is a rhombus standing on one of its points, and in an Oriental rug its four equal sides can be serrated, stepped or set with hooks. The diamond is one of the oldest basic forms in the Oriental rug. In the Islamic world it carries a symbolic meaning: it stands for the immortality of the soul. That is why you will so often find it used as a filler motif.

The overall impression is dominated by rust red and light green.

Material

The technique used to make the materials for this Oxiana's pile is over 200 years old. The wool was dyed with natural dyes and spun by hand. Dyeing with natural or plant dyes is more complicated, more expensive and more time-consuming than dyeing with chemical colours. For a luminous red, for example, you need around one kilo of ground madder root as dyestuff per kilo of wool. For a strong yellow that isn't too pale, it even takes two kilos of weld per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is just as time-consuming and labour-intensive. On top of that, fewer and fewer people still master spinning wool by hand.

But the effort is worth it: dyeing with natural colours lets the high-quality wool keep its natural oils. Wool that has been dyed with natural colours and spun by hand creates fascinating, shimmering patterns. The charm of hand-spun wool, with its slight irregularities and natural shades, comes into its own as a contrast in modern interiors, but just as much in rooms furnished in a more traditional or country-house style. The weft and warp threads of this Oxiana are made of cotton. This versatile material is tear-resistant and pliable, which makes it especially well suited to a hard-wearing foundation.