10'7" x 14'3" Persian Tabriz Rug | Wool | Red, Ivory and Cobalt Blue

A Tabriz measuring 10'7" x 14'3", knotted by hand in Persia with a 3/8" pile. The field is red and densely drawn, carrying a large navy medallion at the centre, ivory corner spandrels, and a cobalt main border. At 10'7" x 14'3" it falls into the oversize range, long enough to take a full dining table with chairs pulled clear.

The design

The centre is an eight-lobed navy medallion built around a cream and red star, its points filled with small square panels and a green rosette at the very middle. Around that star the navy ground carries clusters of pink roses, cream blossom sprays and curling leaves, and the lobes are outlined in a thin straw line that lifts them off the field. Pendants run north and south into smaller navy cartouches, each holding a single rose. The red field between medallion and spandrels is covered in fine flowering vine, tiny pointed palmettes, crescent leaves and scattered white blossoms rather than left open. The ivory spandrels carry the same vine in a looser hand, each with a blue rosette cluster near the corner. The main border sets large rosettes and split leaves on cobalt, between narrow guard stripes of salmon and ivory rosette chain, and this rectangular layout repeats symmetrically along all four sides.

The colour

The ground is a madder red that shifts toward brick across the upper half where the light runs with the pile, a natural variation visible in the angled photographs. Against it the cobalt blue of the medallion and border reads almost black at the centre and opens to a clear mid-blue in the border leaves. The spandrels are an ivory that has settled toward straw, warmer than the white blossoms scattered over the red. Soft rose, salmon, sage green and small points of chalk white do the detail work, and the pink roses on navy are the strongest note in the medallion.

The making

This is a hand-knotted rug with a 3/8" wool pile on a cotton foundation, finished with plain ivory fringe at both ends. The back photograph, taken against a ruler, shows the knot rows running straight and the drawing of the border coming through clearly on the reverse. Condition is recorded as excellent, with the pile standing evenly across the field.