Mid Century Dellinger Inc. Custom Round Wool Sunset Rug, Rome, Georgia, 1960's

Vintage Dellinger Inc. Custom Hand-Tufted Round Wool Sunset Rug, Rome, Georgia, 1960s

Sometime in the 1960s, someone named Absher commissioned a sunset for their floor. Not a poster of a sunset. Not a sunset-adjacent throw pillow. An actual 107-inch, hand-tufted, 100% wool sunset, custom made by Dellinger, Inc. in Rome, Georgia. We know because the original label says so, right there on the back, like a birth certificate for the grooviest baby in the nursery.

Here’s what you get: a fat, plush, high pile wool rug, in a creamy tan, layered with drifting bands of tangerine, burnt orange, coral, salmon, ochre and brick red, punctuated by moody hits of chocolate brown. At the center, a soft pink sun slips down behind a crimson peak while the whole sky goes full Tequila Sunrise around it. It reads like an abstract painting and feels like walking on a very well-mannered cloud. If the Brady Bunch had a rich aunt in Palm Springs, this was in her conversation pit.

Design-wise, it’s in very good company. The organic, free-form color fields and sculptural pile are strongly reminiscent of Edward Fields’ celebrated 1960s rugs, the kind of “art for the floor” that defined the era’s most stylish interiors.

About Dellinger, Inc.
Dellinger got its start in the mid-1930s, when Walter Edwin and Callie Dellinger founded the Dellinger Spread Company in Georgia’s chenille country, an area so famous for tufted bedspreads that the highway through it was nicknamed “Bedspread Alley.” The company later rebranded as Dellinger, Inc. under son-in-law Edward Dowd, who took the helm in 1964 and steered it into luxury custom carpets. Every Dellinger rug was handmade in Rome, Georgia, and the company sold to the trade only, meaning you could only get one through your interior designer or architect. No showroom browsing, no catalog impulse buys. You had to know a guy. The family-run company operated for roughly 60 years before closing its doors in the early 1990s, making original examples like this one increasingly hard to find.

Details

Maker: Dellinger, Inc., Rome, Georgia
Original label: “Custom Made For: Absher,” Style 6104, 100% wool pile, no. 58674
Era: 1960s
Diameter: 107" (just shy of 9 feet)
Construction: hand-tufted, high pile
Condition: great vintage condition

A note on dust: This beauty has been living rolled up and stored in our warehouse, so it’s picked up a light layer of dust (it’s been resting, not neglected, think Sleeping Beauty, not Miss Havisham). Before it heads to its forever home, it will be professionally cleaned, dried and wrapped for shipping.

A one-of-a-kind, made-to-order sunset with a paper trail. Golden hour, every hour. We currently have this rug paired with a pair of Vladimir Kagan cloud sofas and a Paul Evans credenza and it's the perfect chef's kiss / cherry on top to layer in a bit of mid century maximalism at its best!.