10'8" x 14'5" Chinese Art Deco Rug | Midnight Navy Field with Phoenix and Flowering Branches | 1930s

A genuine 1930s Chinese Art Deco piece in a room size that is hard to find in good order, this 10'8" x 14'5" rug is hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation, with the thick, slightly sculpted pile that collectors look for in Deco weaving of this period. The drawing is deliberately sparse: a vast midnight navy field left almost bare, with phoenix birds, blossoming branches and small ritual vases placed at the edges so the eye travels across open ground instead of a repeating pattern. That restraint is exactly what separates a period Deco Oriental rug from later copies. It falls squarely in the range buyers search as 10x14 area rugs, covering a full seating group or a 10 seat dining table with margin to spare. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming age, origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

There is no medallion here, and that is the point. The weaver framed a wide open field and then drew into its corners: long tailed phoenix birds with feathered crests, gnarled prunus and cherry branches in bloom, chrysanthemum heads, peony and lotus blossoms, bronze vases and small incense burners trailing ribbons of smoke. A handful of single sprays float in the middle of the ground, spaced far apart, with one bloom and branch motif sitting almost alone in the center. Two small angular fretwork keys, the classic Chinese meander, sit on either side of the field like punctuation. The border system runs in three bands: a narrow salmon red guard, a navy main band carrying vases, flowering branches and ribbon scrolls, and an outer raspberry band of scrolling vine, blossom and blue-green berry clusters. The outlines are carved slightly into the pile, a hand finishing step that gives each flower a raised, three dimensional edge you can feel with your palm.

A Study in Midnight Navy, Salmon Red and Green

The field is a deep indigo navy that shifts between ink and true midnight blue as the pile turns, which makes this one of the strongest navy blue rugs we have handled in this size. Against it, the palette is warm and unusually soft for such a dark ground: salmon red and raspberry in the two border bands, rose pink in the phoenix tails and the larger peony heads, and a clear soft green in the leaves and scattered leaf sprays. Secondary notes fill in the drawing, apricot and gold ochre in the blossoms and vine work, teal blue in the berry clusters and the feather crests, and chestnut brown in the branches. The reverse, visible where the rug is folded back, shows the original salmon and blue tones in a lighter register, confirming natural, gently mellowed dye rather than anything applied later.

Woven in China in the 1930s

Rugs like this came out of the northern Chinese workshops, above all the Tientsin ateliers, that wove for the American and European market through the 1920s and 1930s, when Art Deco interiors wanted large, calm floor pieces with modern spacing and an Eastern vocabulary. The weave is a moderate knot count on a cotton foundation, but the quality of a Deco Chinese rug was never measured in knots: it lives in the heavy, lustrous wool, the depth of pile, the carving around each motif, and the confidence of the drawing on open ground. This one still carries a full, plush handle, its original selvedges and ivory cotton fringe, and the slightly dry, mellow luster that only decades of settling produce. If you want to understand what puts a piece in this period, our guide on how to date an Oriental rug walks through the same clues we read on the back of this rug.