11'6" x 16' Persian Tabriz Rug | Sheikh Safi Medallion in Wool and Silk | 400 KPSI, Never Used

Woven in the 1980s and never laid on a floor, this 11'6" x 16' Persian Tabriz follows the Sheikh Safi drawing, the shrine composition that Tabriz workshops have kept alive as their most demanding set piece. It is hand-knotted at approximately 400 knots per square inch, 60 Raj in the Tabriz reckoning, on a cotton foundation, with a pile of fine wool and silk where the silk is reserved for outlines and highlights so the vine work lifts and shifts as you move around it. At this width and length it sits squarely among oversize Persian rugs, a piece built for a large formal room rather than a corner. The pile is full, the ends and sides are original and untouched, and the rug ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a navy lobed medallion with a rosette core, ringed by 16 small pointed pendants and finished at each end with a long lamp pendant that hangs down the long axis, the detail that identifies the Sheikh Safi layout. Around it the field is completely filled with fine scrolling vine, small ivory blossoms, split palmettes and paired leaves, punctuated by a rhythm of large teal and green boteh cartouches that repeat in mirrored ranks across the ground. The 4 corners carry quarter medallions in the same navy, so the drawing reads as a single continuous composition rather than a field with added corners. The main border alternates ivory panels of curling vine with green rosette cartouches on navy, framed by a salmon reciprocal stripe inside and a golden yellow outer band of vine and blossom, with narrow floral guards separating every layer. Close inspection of the border photographs shows how tightly the curved line is held at this knot count, with no stepping in the arabesques.

A Warm Rust Red Field with Navy, Green and Turquoise

The ground is a warm rust red, closer to brick and terracotta than to cherry, and it reads slightly deeper under the medallion where the density of drawing increases. Against it the medallion and the corner quarters are a deep inky navy, nearly black in shadow, which pushes the red forward. The secondary palette does the real work: turquoise and sea green fill the boteh cartouches, olive and grass green appear in the leaves and in the rosette cartouches of the border, and soft salmon and apricot pink light up the palmette centers and the medallion core. Ivory outlines every blossom and every vine tip, which keeps the dense field legible instead of muddy, and a golden yellow outer border gives the whole rug a warm frame. Burgundy accents, small touches of gold and the natural ivory cotton fringe complete the range. The silk highlights sit mostly in the ivory and turquoise passages, so those areas flash brighter when the light crosses them.

Tabriz Weaving and the 60 Raj Standard

Tabriz sits in northwest Persia and has been the country's most organized weaving city for generations, working to the Raj system, which counts knots per gereh across the width. 40 Raj is ordinary commercial work and 50 is fine; at 60 Raj, roughly 400 knots per square inch, a workshop is in collector territory, and it is the minimum required to draw a Sheikh Safi field without losing the small blossoms. The weave here is even from end to end, the back is crisp and clearly legible, and the cotton warp and weft give the rug the flat, stable handle Tabriz is known for. Master weavers in that tradition work from a cartoon with several weavers on one loom, which is how a piece 16' long keeps its medallion centered and its borders square, as the flat photographs show.