12' x 15'4" Chinese Art Deco Rug | Salmon Field, Pagoda Landscape Medallion | 1930s Antique

Almost nothing happens in the middle of this rug, and that is the whole idea. A single blue pagoda island sits at the center of a wide salmon field, 4 flowering vases mark the corners, and a deep indigo border closes the composition. It was knotted by hand in the 1930s in thick wool on a cotton foundation, and at 12' x 15'4" it belongs with the oversize antique rugs that were made for long dining rooms and double-height living rooms. Sold as a genuine antique Oriental rug with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center motif is a small woven landscape: a 5 tiered pagoda topped with a finial, a stone stair and a pale olive path climbing a rounded indigo hill, a low pavilion with a lattice roof to the right, a gnarled pine reaching across the roofline, and a hatched strip of water at the base. It reads like a fragment of a scroll painting dropped onto an empty ground. Each of the 4 corners holds a baluster vase with a blossoming branch rising out of it, the flowers drawn as simple 5 petal rosettes in two tones of blue. The main border is a dark indigo band filled with large ivory and olive peony heads, curling leaves and thin connecting vines, framed inside by a teal band of cloud scroll brackets and outside by a narrow guard stripe. There is no medallion, no repeating lattice and no crowding, which is exactly how the Art Deco workshops broke with older Chinese layouts.

Salmon, Indigo and the Character of the Color

The field is a warm salmon, somewhere between coral and terracotta, and it is alive rather than flat: down the middle it lightens toward a sandy peach, along the lower edge it deepens toward rust, and the wool catches light differently depending on which way you walk around it. Against that, the border reads almost black-blue in low light and resolves into a saturated indigo up close, with the inner band running a brighter teal that has glints of turquoise where the pile has worn glossy. The pagoda and the vases pick up the same blues, with midnight outlines for the branches and leaves, olive and old ivory for the path, roof tiles and peony petals. It is a two color rug at heart, salmon and blue, and that restraint is why it sits comfortably with modern furniture, dark wood and plaster walls alike.

Chinese Art Deco Weaving in the 1930s

Rugs like this came out of the big commercial workshops of Peking and Tientsin in the 1920s and 1930s, woven specifically for American and European interiors of the period. The weavers used a heavy, lustrous wool laid over a cotton foundation, a moderate knot count and a deliberately thick pile that was then clipped around the outlines so the motifs stand slightly proud of the ground. Quality in this group is judged by the drawing, the depth of the natural dyes and the handle of the wool rather than by knot count, and on all 3 counts this piece is a good example of the type. Anyone who wants to understand how the wool, the palette and the loom marks help date an antique Oriental rug can see the evidence here, from the fine cotton warps at the end finish to the soft, evenly worn pile across the open field.