Burgundy Gül Bokhara

100% wool pile, hand-knotted in Pakistan, with ivory fringe at both ends. Wool is naturally resilient and hard-wearing, and the close pile of a Bokhara is made for everyday floor use.

Deep burgundy is one of the most practical colours a small rug can have: it hides everyday marks well and fades slowly. The ivory in the güls and the ivory fringe are the parts that will show dirt first at a doorway.

The field of this rug is the classic Bokhara layout — twelve güls in two columns, with minor güls between them — so the place to look for its character is the border. Follow the black band that runs around the rug and count the small hooked arrow shapes inside it: gold, then olive green, then red, then gold again. The weaver keeps to that three-colour order all the way round. It is a small discipline, but a telling one. A repeat of three colours along a border whose length is not a multiple of three has to be managed at every corner, and on a hand-knotted rug it is easy to lose count. Here the sequence runs steadily enough that the border reads as a slow, even pulse around the field, with the red arrows almost disappearing into the burgundy and the gold and green carrying the rhythm.