Vintage Fethiye kilim rug – 120 x 90 cm

There are kilims that seem built like labyrinths, where the eye takes time to find its way to the centre. This one, woven in Fethiye some 60 years ago, is a perfect example. An immense diamond opens at the heart of the ivory field and repeats in concentric circles, red, midnight blue, olive green, narrowing gradually like the rings of a tree, down to a tiny white motif hidden at its centre, almost a confidence the weaver had slipped there for herself alone.

Around it, two bands of red and blue hooks curl endlessly, like the waves of a single movement repeated generation after generation, a design passed from mother to daughter long before it was fixed upon this loom. The salmon pink that frames the whole varies slightly from one place to the next, deeper here, paler there, the discreet signature of a dye prepared by hand, bath by bath. Across its 120 x 90 cm (3'11" × 2'11"), this kilim never reveals itself entirely at first glance. It is discovered, layer by layer, like the motif it carries.

One of a kind.