Silver Silver? Silver!

Silver for jewelry. Silver for cutlery. Silver for rugs? What is a silver rug or a silver-toned rug? Silver is not a spectral color, indeed not a color at all, at least in the usual optical sense.  Not white, not grey, not even platinum.  Silver is cool, the color of the moon, as gold is of the sun.  Silver metallic thread appears only rarely in rugs,  and on nothing modern. Let us consider what a silver rug ought to be. Reflective, or at least patinated. Silver surfaces are perfect, so texture is only a minor concern. Keep it smooth. If not reflective, how about sparkly? What about pattern? Obviously not. Pattern breaks up the surface, and surface is paramount.  And there cannot be two shades of silver. Borders, same as for pattern. Monochromes are big these days.  What can be more monochrome and versatile than a silvery carpet? Barcelona chairs? Yes. Italian Contempo? Yes. You can clearly see the difference, just try to imagine a gold carpet. Does not work.

A work of art is the visual surface, everything else, all techniques, all materials, even iconography, is just an invisible scaffolding for the surface. A silver rug dispenses with anything but the surface. It is all surface. Minimalized..

One problem, such as it is, that it is hard, very hard, to make a silvery carpet. No dyeing, no simple wool processing, no bleaching. Ecru is easy, white, and off-white are only a little harder. But silver, cool and crisp is very hard.  No traces of grey, no shadows of beige, no intimations of eggshell. Just try finding that wool!  Angora goat wool is shiny, but never comes, even in processed form, in anything like what we require. Texture? No nubbiness, no looping, no high/low. Silver allows for no cheating, no improvisation. Any compromise is obvious.

This all means that even our extensive stock contains precious few truly silver carpets. Here is an example that approaches this sort of perfection.

An oversize Oushak Rug 17’10 x 23’.