Sundial (6'0" x 11'10") – Authentic Vintage Moroccan Rug

Nearly twelve feet of warm caramel, and on all that ground the weaver placed exactly two things: a sawtooth border in pale duck-egg blue, and one diamond at the centre.

The diamond is built from nested outlines with fine lines radiating from its edges, fanning outward like rays from a dial. The border runs the full perimeter in a single bold zigzag, teeth turned inward. Everything else is left alone.

Restraint of this kind is uncommon in vintage Moroccan weaving. Most pieces fill the field — with symbols, with medallions, with colour. This weaver did not, and the result is a rug that would sit comfortably in a room designed sixty years after it was made. The pale blue against tobacco brown is an unusual pairing and a quietly sophisticated one; it is softer and warmer than the black-on-cream Beni Ourain everyone recognises.

Look closely and you will find the marks of the loom. A faint line runs down the centre where the weaver's reach changed, and the caramel shifts a shade or two across the width where the dye lot moved. On a machine-made rug either would be a defect. Here they are the reason you know a person made it.

We buy rugs like this because we would rather sell one honest, irregular, human-made piece than a hundred flawless machine copies. It was hand-knotted in Morocco decades ago, it has already lived a life, and there is not another one anywhere.

Details

• Rug Number: IC-2459
• Size: 6'0" x 11'10" (1.83m x 3.61m)
• Construction: Hand-knotted on a traditional loom in Morocco — no machine work at any stage
• Style: Vintage Moroccan rug, Beni Ourain family — minimal composition with a sawtooth border and single diamond medallion
• Colours: Caramel brown ground with pale duck-egg blue
• Pile: High and plush
• Fringe: Original short fringe at one end
• Authenticity: A genuine one-of-a-kind vintage piece. The faint centre line from the loom, tonal drift across the ground and slight irregularity in the sawtooth are inherent to hand-weaving — they are the evidence it is real
• Availability: One of one. Once this rug sells, it cannot be reordered or reproduced
• Care: Professionally washed before dispatch and ready to use on arrival

Where it works

At 6'0" x 11'10" this is a large rug with long-room proportions, and the minimal design makes it the easiest piece in the collection to place.

• Living room: Its natural home. Long enough to carry a full seating group with the front legs of the sofa and chairs on the rug, or to float all legs on in a compact arrangement
• Long or through rooms: The proportions suit a narrow living room or a knocked-through space where a square rug would sit awkwardly
• Open-plan zoning: Large enough to define a seating area within a bigger space
• Large bedroom: Best laid across the foot of a king, or floated in a generous room rather than tucked under the bed — at 6' wide a king will overhang it
• Gallery landing or wide hall: Long enough to carry a substantial corridor
• Minimal interiors: The reason to choose this over anything else in the collection. It brings age, texture and hand-work into a pared-back room without introducing pattern

Palette notes: Caramel with pale blue is warmer and more forgiving than the black-and-cream Beni Ourain palette, and it sits with a wider range of woods. Try it with walnut, oak, cane, bone linen, cream plaster and unlacquered brass. The blue keeps it from reading as purely warm, which means it works in a cooler room too.

Questions about this piece

This is a single vintage rug, so what you see is what exists — it cannot be remade, resized or reordered. If you would like additional photographs, detail shots of the pile or medallion, or a closer look at condition before presenting it to a client, we are happy to send them. Trade enquiries are always welcome.

Write to us at Info@illuminatecollectiverugs.com.

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