10' x 14' Ivory Aubusson Rug | Black Acanthus Border, French Floral Medallion | Excellent Condition

This is a handmade wool Aubusson in the full French manner, woven flat so the drawing reads like a tapestry rather than a plush floor covering. At 10' x 14' it covers a formal dining or living room completely, and the composition was clearly drawn for that scale: a black oval medallion floating in a wide ivory field, black quatrefoil corner brackets, and acanthus scrollwork that runs corner to corner without a single awkward join. The wool is tightly beaten over a cotton foundation, the surface is low and even, and the piece is in excellent condition throughout. It ships with our certificate of authenticity, and it belongs in the same conversation as other large-format 10 x 14 area rugs that need to anchor a room on their own.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a round ivory rosette of 8 shaded petals set inside a braided guilloche ring, which in turn sits on a black oval panel filled with curling acanthus leaves and small open blossoms. Around that oval the ivory field opens out into a cartouche-shaped reserve edged with fine scroll lines, scattered with loose bouquets of roses, buds and trailing leaf sprays, plus ribbon knots and tasseled swags at the top and bottom axis. Each of the 4 corners carries a deep black bracket packed with large rolling acanthus volutes and pendant leaf clusters, the classic Aubusson device for pulling the eye back toward the medallion. The outer frame is a sage ground band of running leaf scrolls contained between narrow ivory lines, finished with a plain black outer band that squares the whole design off cleanly.

A Study in Ivory, Black and Sage

The field is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than to white, and it shifts slightly toward pale wheat where the shading in the scrollwork thickens. Against it the black reads as a true matte ink, used only in the oval, the corner brackets and the outer band, so the contrast is graphic without becoming heavy. Between those two extremes the weaver worked a quiet range of secondary tones: sage and celadon green in the leaf work and the guard band, soft salmon rose in the flower heads and the tips of the acanthus leaves, and a light gold that outlines the medallion ring. The result is a neutral rug at a distance and a colored one up close, which is why it sits comfortably with both antique wood and modern upholstery.

Chinese Workshop Weaving of a French Design

Aubusson began as a French tapestry weaving town, and for decades now the finest reproductions of those 18th and 19th century floor designs have been woven by hand in Chinese workshops, which is what this piece is: made in China, drawn from the French repertoire, and executed by hand at a standard that holds the curved line cleanly across a 14 foot length. That combination of European drawing and Asian workshop weaving is exactly the territory covered by the term Oriental rug. The weave is fine and dense, the selvedges are firmly overcast, and because the surface carries almost no pile the rug lies flat under furniture and shows the pattern rather than the footprint, which is the practical reason decorators keep specifying Aubusson for dining rooms.