Aatish Yusufi One-OF-A-Kind-Afghan Rug

The Yusufi carpet takes its name from a weaving tradition associated with Mazar-e-Sharif's Turkmen workshops, known for their layered medallion compositions and a border vocabulary that moves in from the outside in bands of increasing complexity. This piece is a masterclass in the format: a vivid crimson field with a wide, botanical scroll border in the same red ground — bouquets, palmettes, oak-leaf forms — and at the centre, an elongated medallion in ivory and navy that rises the full length of the carpet.

The negative space on either side of the medallion creates the tension. Wool on cotton, hand-knotted at 110 knots per square inch in Mazar-e-Sharif. A large, authoritative piece.