Amber and Brown Diamond Frame Loribaf, Hand-Knotted Wool Rug

Hand-knotted in Ghazni wool, the prized highland fleece from central Afghanistan, valued for its long staple and natural lustre. The pile is dense and resilient, and the sheen deepens rather than dulls with use.

Because the field is largely open, this rug is less forgiving than a patterned one — footmarks, vacuum tracks and crushing under furniture all show clearly with no drawing to break them up. The vertical banding in the amber is abrash and is permanent; it will not even out with cleaning or wear.

The rug is built from one small diamond, used at two different densities. Follow the inner rectangle down either long side and the diamonds are spaced apart, one at a time, reading as a dotted line drawn on open ground. Follow the same rectangle across the top or the bottom and those single diamonds close up into a wide band, packed shoulder to shoulder several rows deep. It is the same motif and the same three colours throughout — only the spacing changes.

That does something specific to a rectangular rug. A frame of even weight would simply outline the field; here the two ends are heavy and the two sides are light, which stops the eye travelling round the border and sends it up and down the length instead. The open amber between takes up most of the surface, so the wool itself carries the rug — and the soft vertical banding across it is abrash, the natural variation between small dye lots, which on a field this plain is the main thing there is to look at.