10' x 14' French Aubusson Flat Weave Rug | Rose Garland Medallion | Brand New, Never Used

This is a large 10' x 14' hand woven flat weave in the French Aubusson manner, a tapestry piece with no pile at all, so the drawing sits flush with the surface like a painted panel rather than standing up in wool. The field is a soft blush ivory, the wide outer border a warm camel gold, and the whole composition is built from rose garlands, ribbon swags and olive leaf vines that frame a single coral and sage medallion at the center. It is brand new and never used, and at 120 inches by 168 inches it covers a full seating group or a long dining table with room to spare. Because it is woven flat, it slides under doors, sideboards and low furniture that a thick pile piece will not clear. Every piece we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity, and this one is documented as a genuine hand woven Oriental rug on its original dealer tag.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a 4 lobed rosette in coral and rose with a small sage and ivory star at its heart, opened out inside a long oval wreath of slender leaf sprays that trail off into loose tendrils at each end. Around that wreath the weaver has drawn the full Aubusson vocabulary: twisted rope swags that loop from corner to corner, flat ribbons tied into soft bows, scrolled acanthus brackets, and a pair of trumpet shaped horns at the head and foot of the field. Heavy bouquets of cabbage roses, open peonies, small 5 petal blossoms and buds gather at the 4 corners and again at the midpoint of each long side, so the eye moves in a continuous circuit around the empty center. The border system is layered rather than busy: a thin rose line, a plain gold panel carrying a second running garland of roses, a narrow pink stripe, then an ivory band filled with an olive and cream diamond lattice, closed by a broad plain camel outer band that acts as a frame. A single small lozenge marks the middle of each end of the lattice band, the traditional centering device on a design of this kind.

A Palette of Blush, Camel Gold and Sage

Everything here is deliberately quiet. The open field is a warm blush ivory with the faintest pink cast, closer to the inside of a shell than to white, and it shifts a full tone lighter or deeper depending on which way the light crosses the flat weave. The wide outer border is a soft camel gold, and the inner border panel a paler wheat of the same family, so the frame reads as two shades of honey rather than one hard block of color. Against that ground the flowers carry dusty rose, deep raspberry centers, salmon, peach and apricot, with cream roses shaded in the palest gray. Small forget-me-nots in pale powder blue are dropped through the bouquets and give the whole scheme its one cool note. The foliage runs from a dark olive brown through sage to a light celadon, and the rope swags and ribbon work are drawn in a light terracotta that ties the corals of the medallion back to the gold of the border. Thin rose pink lines separate the border bands. There is no black, no navy and no strong saturation anywhere, which is exactly why this palette works in a room of creams, taupes, faded blues and natural wood.

The Aubusson Tradition and the Weaving

Aubusson is a town in central France whose workshops wove flat tapestry floor coverings for the French court and for grand houses from the 17th century onward, and the pastel floral formula seen here, an open field, a wreath medallion and corner bouquets tied with ribbon, is the pattern that made the name. This piece is made in China, which is where the best hand woven Aubusson work is produced today, on looms that have been doing this drawing for decades. The technique is weft-faced tapestry: the colored wool is packed across a cotton warp so tightly that the warp disappears, and each shade is woven as its own discrete area, which is what allows the shading inside a single rose petal to move from cream to raspberry without an outline. There is no knotted pile to crush or shed, the surface is dense and firm underfoot, and the back shows the same drawing in reverse. If you are shopping 10 x 14 area rugs and want floor coverage without visual weight, a flat weave in this palette does the job that a heavy pile piece cannot.