10'5" x 12'11" Persian Tabriz Rug | Ivory All Over Floral Field | Sky Blue Border

This is a room size Persian Tabriz woven on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" wool pile, measuring 10'5" x 12'11" and holding its shape squarely across both ends. Instead of the usual central medallion, the weaver filled the ivory ground edge to edge with an all over floral scheme, then framed it in a wide sky blue border that reads as the rug's signal color from across a room. The pile is even, the drawing stays crisp into the corners, and the piece is in excellent, never used condition. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction. If you are shopping the 10x13 Persian rug range, this one covers a large floor without the visual weight a dark field brings.

Design and Motifs

The field is an all over floral design built from thin scrolling vines that loop, cross and reconnect without a break, carrying large serrated palmettes, split leaf arabesques, cypress like leaf forms and small multi petal rosettes. The composition is mirrored on the long axis, so the same red crowned palmette that anchors the upper field repeats at the lower end and the drawing reads correctly from either side of the room. Look closely at the corner photographs and you can see how many separate flower heads the cartoon calls for: tulip forms, buds on curling stems, tiny six petal blossoms scattered in the open ivory ground, and shaded palmette centers where two or three tones sit inside one motif. The main border runs a continuous vine of large palmettes and fan shaped leaves, and it is flanked on both sides by narrow guard stripes of small white blossoms on a dark ground, a detail that keeps the wide border from overpowering the field.

A Study in Ivory and Sky Blue

The ground is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than white, and that softness is what lets the rest of the palette sit calmly on top of it. The main border is a clear sky blue, a lighter and more open tone than the navy most large Persian rugs use, and it is the first thing the eye picks up in the full view photograph. Against both of those, the weaver worked brick red and deeper madder for the palmette crowns and border flowers, navy blue for outlines and for the guard stripe grounds, soft sage and olive green in the leafwork, and touches of tan, rose and pale blue inside the individual blossoms. A thin red outline separates the field from the border and repeats at the outer edge, drawing a tidy frame around the whole piece. The overall effect is light and formal at once, and it suits rooms with pale walls, wood floors or furniture in blues and neutrals.

Tabriz Weaving in Northwest Persia

Tabriz sits in the far northwest of Persia and has been a commercial and court weaving center for centuries, long enough that its workshops set the standard other towns measure themselves against. Tabriz weavers count fineness in Raj, the number of knots across a gereh of about 2.75 inches, and the town works on cartoons drawn by professional designers rather than from memory, which is why a curvilinear all over pattern like this one stays consistent over nearly 13 feet of length. That discipline shows here in the borders, where the palmette repeat turns each of the 4 corners without the cramped or stretched motif you see in village work. The wool has a good dry handle and a slight sheen under light, the cotton foundation keeps the rug flat and stable at this size, and the 3/8" pile is deep enough to wear for decades under normal household traffic. For a buyer who wants a large, light-ground Persian city rug with formal drawing, this is exactly what the Tabriz workshops do best.