Rugs Hides & Woven Mats

A Mongolian felt tent, a Tuareg camp, a fire, and something soft underfoot. Rugs of hides and woven mats include Mongolian lamb in long and short hair, hand-painted cowhide, zebra skin, goatskin and Rex rabbit pelts, alongside Kuba raffia from the Congo and Saharan mats from Mauritania. Tuareg and Moorish tent mats are woven of reed and grass and bound with dyed leather, made to line tents and screen their walls; Kuba tcaka dance skirts, backed as throws, carry their raffia embroidery into new use. Mongolian lamb comes dyed black, mauve, tan or gray, or left natural white.

Fur and raffia are warm underfoot and soft against stone. A lamb throw on a dark bench, a hide in a bathroom, a Saharan mat hung in the entry: texture without pattern.