The Rug Company

Eva Zeisel Collaborates with The Rug Company at Age 102

Legendry industrial designer, Eva Zeisel has collaborated with The Rug Company at the age of 102 years old. The Hungarian born designer, known primarily for her work with ceramics, has transformed three tile designs into innovative, hand knotted rugs.

The designs, like much of her previous work, are based on abstract forms of the natural world and human relationships. Dimpled Spindle is the designer’s iconic “belly button” shape that was first introduced in the late 1950s from a series of ceramic space dividers, manufactured in Italy by Mancioli Ceramics Factory. It is hand knotted in brightly coloured Tibetan wool, with carved pile to create a 3D effect identical to its porcelain muse. Zeisel renamed the rug especially for the project stating, “Belly Buttons is not a very dignified name for such an elegant rug!”

Fish and Lacy X were designed later in Zeisel’s celebrated lifetime and are similarly inspired by real shapes and forms. The designs were reworked into geometric, 2D repeats and hand knotted in wool and wool & silk mixes respectively.

When the designs were originally submitted to Christopher Sharp, CEO and co-founder of The Rug Company in London, he immediately responded to the package of brightly coloured poster boards by calling Eva’s studio and saying, “We love the designs! They’re so forward looking!” Eva was 100 at the time.

Dimpled Spindle by Eva Zeisel for The Rug Company Hand knotted, Tibetan wool rug with carved pile, £2,835 for a 9’x6’ or £565/m2

Fish by Eva Zeisel for The Rug Company Hand knotted, Tibetan wool rug, £2,580 for a 9’x6’ or £515/m2

Lacy X by Eva Zeisel for The Rug Company Hand knotted, Tibetan wool and raised silk rug, 150 knot, £4,385 for a 9’x6’ or £875/m2