Camel and Pink Rose Floral, Hand-Knotted Wool Rug

Material: 100 percent hand-spun wool on a cotton foundation, hand-knotted using the double knot.

Care instructions

• Vacuum regularly on a low setting.
• Rotate the rug every six months for even wear.
• Blot spills immediately, working from the outside in.
• Keep out of prolonged direct sunlight.
• Have the rug professionally deep-cleaned when needed.

Gol farang means foreign flower, and it names the moment Persian weaving met European taste. In the nineteenth century, printed French and Russian textiles reached the bazaars of Kerman and Tabriz, and weavers began setting their stylised palmettes aside in favour of the rose as a European painter would draw it — full-blown, shaded, botanically real, with its own leaves and stem. The result is unlike almost anything else in the Persian repertoire: a field that reads as a garden rather than a pattern. Here the roses are scattered across a warm camel ground in coral and rose pink, gathered loosely towards a small medallion at the centre, with a slate-blue border carrying the same flowers around the edge. Woven in Pakistan on the double knot, the denser of the two knots used there, which is what allows the shading within each petal to be drawn at all.