11'9" x 17'8" Agra Oriental Rug | Burgundy Herati Field with Ivory Borders | Hand-Knotted Wool, Made in India

At 11'9" x 17'8" this is a true palace piece, one of the few weaves large enough to carry a 20 foot great room or a long formal dining table with chairs pulled all the way out. It is hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation, finished at a 3/8" pile that still has the crisp cut of a rug that has never been walked on, and the drawing is the classic Agra formula: an unbroken Herati lattice across the field, contained by a wide main border and a stack of narrow guard stripes. Buyers shopping oversize 12x18 rugs rarely find one in this condition, brand new and unused, with the weight and density this one has in hand. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming the hand-knotted construction, materials and origin.

Design and Motifs

The field is a continuous Herati lattice, the pattern most people know as the fish or mahi design. Slim gold lines run diagonally across the whole ground and lock into small diamonds, and at the center of each diamond sits an 8 petal rosette in salmon and ivory. Where the diamonds meet, a star rosette in yellow and cream anchors the crossing, and curved sickle leaves in olive and slate blue cradle each unit like a pair of fish turning around a pool. Nothing repeats lazily: the leaves alternate direction row by row, which is what keeps an all-over pattern of this scale from reading flat. The main border carries large ivory and gold palmettes and rosettes on a burgundy ground, joined by a thin vine that loops through paisley buds and small blossoms. Framing it on both sides are ivory guard bands filled with reclining boteh, each outlined in navy or soft brown, and outside those a run of narrow reciprocal stripes in cream and rust. The corners are resolved cleanly, with the border drawing turning the angle without a broken motif, which is the first place an experienced eye checks on a rug this long.

Burgundy Ground, Ivory Frame, Gold Lattice

The dominant color is a deep burgundy, a red with brown and wine in it rather than the bright tomato red of a commercial weave, and it stays even from one end of the 17'8" length to the other. Over it, the lattice is drawn in warm antique gold, and the rosettes shift between salmon, peach and bone white so the surface reads as a soft blush haze from standing height and resolves into individual flowers when you step closer. The supporting palette is quiet and well judged: olive and sage green in the leaves, slate blue and navy in the outlines and flower centers, a clear butter yellow in the smaller rosettes, and touches of rose pink that lift the whole field. The main border repeats the burgundy ground, while the guard bands are ivory going to cream and bone white, which is what gives the rug its light outer frame and stops the field from feeling heavy. Ivory fringe at both ends and a burgundy selvage finish the edges. Against dark wood, walnut or espresso floors the ivory frame draws the outline of the room; over pale oak or travertine the burgundy does the anchoring instead.

The Agra Tradition, Woven in India

Agra has been a weaving city since the Mughal court set up workshops there in the 16th century, and the city's signature has always been a formal, densely drawn field held inside a strongly stated border, exactly what this piece does. India is where most of the world's best contemporary hand-knotted work is now made, and it is no compliment by default: the good workshops there run hand-spun wool, cotton warps, natural and vegetal dye recipes, and weavers who can hold a lattice square across nearly 18 feet without the pattern drifting. That discipline is visible here on the back, where the knotting is fine and regular, the rows are even, and the design shows through with the same clarity as the front. As an Oriental rug in the Agra manner, it delivers the weight, wool quality and drawing of a formal room-defining piece, and at a 3/8" pile with the full length of the wool still standing, it has its entire working life ahead of it.