10'8" x 16'9" Chinese Needlepoint Rug | Black Allover Floral | Oversize Pre-Owned, Excellent Condition

This is a large, handsome piece of decorative floor work: an oversize needlepoint rug measuring a true 10'8" x 16'9", stitched entirely by hand in wool yarn on a cotton canvas ground. There is no pile to speak of, which is exactly the point. The surface sits flat and tight, the drawing reads with the clarity of embroidery rather than the softness of a knotted weave, and the black ground makes every bouquet look like it was set down on lacquer. It is pre-owned and in excellent condition, the wool still full of color, the edges straight, the body heavy and even end to end. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity from Rugs.net.

Design and Motifs

There is no medallion and no repeating lattice here. Instead the whole field is scattered with individual floral sprays, dozens of them, each drawn as its own small bouquet and spaced so the black ground reads as open air between them. Full blown cabbage roses and peonies carry the larger groups, with chrysanthemums, five petal blossoms, buds on the stem and clusters of tiny berries filling the gaps. Broad serrated leaves and curling tendrils give each spray direction, so the eye travels across the rug instead of settling in one place. The border is the European note: a slender tan ribbon rail running the full perimeter, punctuated at regular intervals by 4 petal rosettes and paired acanthus leaves, with a plain black outer guard band that frames the whole composition cleanly. It is a garden design in the Aubusson and Savonnerie tradition, drawn with restraint rather than crowding.

Color: A True Black Ground with Peach, Ivory and Sage

The ground is a deep, even black with no abrash and no blue cast, and because the stitching is flat it holds that black consistently from every viewing angle. Against it the flowers work through a warm palette: soft peach and salmon in the roses, apricot and light rust in the chrysanthemums, and a creamy ivory that reads almost white in the larger blooms and gives the field its highest contrast points. The foliage moves between a pale celadon and a darker pine green, which keeps the leaves from flattening into a single mass. Scattered through the field are occasional pale blue blossoms with small gold centers, used sparingly enough that they register as accents rather than a fourth color. The border is worked in tan, wheat and light gold with a darker caramel shadow line along the ribbon, warming the perimeter and tying the ivory of the field back into the frame.

Chinese Needlepoint Weaving and Quality

Needlepoint floor pieces of this kind are worked in Chinese workshops that adopted the French floral tradition and built a reputation for it, and this one shows why: the stitch count is fine enough to render a curved rose petal without stepping, the outlines stay crisp, and at nearly 17 feet long the drawing never drifts out of register. Each stitch is passed by hand through the canvas, which makes a piece this size a long and labor heavy project, far slower per square foot than most people assume. The result is a flat, dense, low profile surface that sits well under furniture, takes traffic without crushing, and suits a formal dining room or a long living room where a high pile would be too much. If you are weighing this against a knotted piece, it is worth understanding how an Oriental rug is classified and where needlepoint sits within that family.