11'9" x 14'7" Indian Agra Rug | All-Over Floral Palmette | Burnt Red, Green & Gold | Brand New

This is a big, warm, confident floor piece: 11'9" x 14'7" of hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation, drawn in the classical Agra manner with an all-over palmette field in burnt red, olive green and antique gold. It has never been used, and at roughly 171 square feet it belongs in the family of genuinely oversize hand-knotted rugs that cover a great room wall to wall rather than floating in the middle of it. The 3/8" pile is even and full, the selvages are tight, and the ivory cotton fringe is original and undisturbed on both ends. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is hand-knotted, with its origin, materials and measurements recorded.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. The field carries a repeating lattice of large serrated palmettes, lotus blossoms and 8 petal rosettes joined by thin curling vines, the classic Mughal drawing that Agra workshops built their name on. Because the layout is an all-over floral design, the rug reads the same from every side of the room, which matters when furniture sits on 3 edges of a piece this large. Surrounding it are 5 bands: a wide olive-gold main border filled with alternating cartouche blossoms and split palmettes, flanked by narrow red guard stripes and an outer band of small square medallions and rosettes. Look closely at the field and you find small vases and cypress-like sprays tucked between the larger flowers, a detail the weavers kept from the old Agra cartoons.

A Burnt Red Field Lit by Olive Green and Antique Gold

The ground is a burnt brick red, closer to terracotta and dried rose than to a bright fire engine tone, and it shifts slightly from bay to bay the way hand-dyed wool always does. Over it the palmettes are woven in a soft antique gold that leans almost brass in direct light and pale straw in shade, while the leaves and vine work carry an olive to sage green that keeps the warm tones from turning sweet. The main border reverses the balance, putting an olive-gold ground against red blossoms so the frame glows rather than boxes the field in. Touches of deeper wine and charcoal outline the larger flowers, and the fringe and a few tiny highlights read ivory. In daylight the overall impression is amber and rust; under lamps at night the green recedes and the gold takes over.

Agra Weaving and the Indian Workshop Tradition

Agra, in northern India, has woven court-quality floor pieces since the Mughal era, and the city's name now describes a whole family of formal all-over floral designs. India is where most of the world's good contemporary hand-knotted work is now made, and a piece like this shows why: hand-spun wool with real luster, vegetable-toned dyes, a firm cotton warp and weft, and knotting even enough to hold a curved vine over nearly 15 feet of length. If you are weighing this against a village piece from another country, our guide on Persian rugs vs Oriental rugs explains where the categories actually differ. The 3/8" pile is deep enough to feel substantial underfoot and short enough to keep the drawing crisp, and at this weight the rug lies flat and stays put in a heavily used room.