Before Francis Bacon became one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century, he was a designer of rugs.

In 1929, Bacon settled on 17 Queensberry Mews, South Kensington — a former garage transformed into a double-height showroom. Visiting it meant walking through a narrow mews towards a steep outside staircase, then entering what Stevens and Swan describe in Francis Bacon: Revelations as "a kind of surprise — the radiantly open space below, two clean storeys of air and light." Its main purpose was to exhibit and publicise his furniture and rugs, and to inspire others with how modern people might choose to live. Several rugs with a cubist look were positioned on the floor.

Above all, Bacon looked to Galerie Jean Désert — Eileen Gray's Paris showroom. His dream, as Stevens and Swan write, was probably "a showroom as remarkable as Eileen Gray's. Perhaps he could become the Eileen Gray of London." He reserved his highest praise for the French artist-decorators whose work embodied "simple lines, graceful shapes, with a slight elegance, and a restraint in applied decoration." He believed decoration was "mainly a process of eliminating."

The Francis is made in that spirit. Large geometric forms interrupt a soft sage ground — a hard black mass against open space, a line of acid yellow cutting across like a moment of decision. The forms don't quite resolve; the tension is the point.

Hand-knotted at 100 knots per square inch by Goodweave-certified artisans in Nepal, in New Zealand wool and bamboo silk. The silk shifts the tones across olive, grey and near-black depending on the angle of light.

At 180 x 240cm, this is a rug for a room with confidence.

Limited to an edition of 5. Each piece is made to order.