When the lamps are lit, the whole hall turns the colour of a ruby held to a flame. In that red light a woman looks up and sees, across the floor, the face she painted before she knew whose it was.
The ground of this rug is that red, deep and slow as wine. From its heart, gold, sand and brown unfurl in long curves, like light turning inside a stone. Fine threads of gold wander loose through the red, the small flaws by which a jeweller knows a stone is real.
