Brick Red and Ivory Turkmen Gül Bokhara, Hand-Knotted Sherwan

100% hand-spun Afghan wool, naturally rich in lanolin, which gives it softness, a subtle sheen and a natural resistance to everyday dirt and spills. Hand-knotted in northern Afghanistan with ivory kilim-finished ends.

A brick red ground hides everyday marks well. The ivory in the güls and border repeats is the vulnerable colour — it is the palest thing on the rug and the first to grey, and on a runner it sits close to the centre line where the traffic goes. The end panel takes the heaviest wear of all, being nearest the fringe.

Most gül rugs set their emblems on an open ground and leave the space between them empty. This one rules the whole field first. A fine dark lattice runs the length and width of the rug, dividing it into rectangular cells, and every gül sits at an intersection rather than floating on a ground. Follow any line with a finger and it does not stop: the verticals run from one end of the field to the other, the horizontals from border to border, and both pass straight through the güls rather than breaking around them.

It changes what the red is doing. On an open-ground Bokhara the red is a field, and the güls sit on top of it; here the red survives as the cells of a net, so it reads as something contained rather than something continuous. It also gives the weaver a scaffold: with the grid ruled first, every gül has a fixed place to occupy, which is how a two-column repeat stays true over eleven and a half feet. The cells between the columns are not left empty either — each holds a small cruciform device, so the lattice is filled everywhere it crosses.