Ziegler

What a Ziegler rug is

A Ziegler is a hand-knotted rug in the style developed in the 1880s, when the Swiss firm Ziegler and Company set up carpet production in Sultanabad, in western Persia, weaving specifically for European and American interiors. The designs softened the dense Persian floral tradition: larger repeats, more open fields, and colour pulled back toward the muted.

Why it was designed that way

The commercial intent is the whole reason the style works. Ziegler was drawing for rooms it had never seen, which meant the carpet could not assume a particular wall colour, a particular furniture scale, or a particular light. What came out of that constraint was a design that gives a room a ground to stand on without asking for the eye. More than a century later that is still the most useful thing a carpet can do.

The palette

All-over vine and palmette drawn at a generous scale, in madder that has faded toward terracotta, with sage, sand and old ivory. Nothing is at full saturation. The colours are chosen to look as though they have already been lived with, which is why a new Ziegler does not read as new.

Where a Ziegler sits

This is the most forgiving of the traditions held here. A Ziegler recedes, so it can go into a room that is already busy and settle it rather than add to it. Pieces run from about 4 × 6 ft to 9.9 × 13.3 ft, the largest of them drawn for an open-plan room where the carpet has to define where one area ends.