10' x 13'8" Persian Tabriz Rug | Ruby Red Floral Medallion | 400 KPSI, Never Used

This is a workshop grade Tabriz in the size most American rooms actually need, 10' x 13'8", woven at roughly 400 knots per square inch on a cotton foundation with a wool and silk pile. It has never been on a floor: the pile stands full and even from selvedge to selvedge, the fringes are untouched, and the silk passes still throw light when you walk around the rug, which you can see in the pile shots. At close to 137 square feet it is a genuine room size piece that will sit under a full dining set or float a large seating group, and it ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is classic Tabriz workshop work: a lobed ivory medallion set on a blue black cushion, with a small 8 petal rosette at the dead center ringed by pink and cream cartouches. Slender pendant palmettes drop from the medallion toward each end, and the field around it is filled edge to edge with curling arabesque vine, cypress sprays, split palmettes and small naturalistic roses, each one outlined so cleanly that the curves never break into steps. The 4 corners carry mocha taupe spandrels loaded with scrolling vinework and their own small floral cartouches, which frames the red field and gives the whole composition a distinct center. A blue black main border of alternating palmettes and leafy vines sits between two ivory guard stripes of running rose vine, and a fine minor stripe finishes the outer edge above the cotton fringe.

A Deep Ruby Red Field With Blue Black and Ivory

The field is a deep ruby red, closer to a true jewel red than to brick or rust, and the wool takes it with enough depth that the color shifts slightly from crimson to garnet depending on which end of the rug you stand at. Against it the main border reads almost black, a blue black so dark that the pink, sage green and cream flowers drawn on it appear to be lit from behind. The ivory guard borders and the ivory medallion provide the bright relief, while the mocha taupe spandrels act as a warm buffer between the red and the black. Inside the flowers you will find soft rose pink, dusty salmon, olive and sage green, pale slate blue, chestnut brown and a burgundy that is a shade deeper than the field. The silk is used only where it counts, on petal edges and leaf tips, so the highlights move as the light changes rather than shining flat.

Tabriz: Northwest Persia and the Raj Count

Tabriz sits in the northwest of Persia and has been the reference point for fine Persian weaving for centuries, in part because its workshops measure themselves by the Raj system, the number of knots counted across a gereh of about 2.75 inches. At 60 Raj, around 400 knots per square inch, this rug sits in the collector band: 40 Raj is commercial work, 50 is fine, and 60 is where a weaver can draw a true curved line, which is exactly what the vine scrolls and the lobed medallion here demand. The wool is tightly packed against a cotton warp and weft, the back shows crisp small knots with no looseness at the selvedges, and the handle is firm rather than floppy. Buyers who need this footprint can compare the rest of our 10x14 Persian rugs, but few of them arrive unused at this knot count.