12' x 18' Agra Oriental Rug | Red and Gold All Over Vine Design | Oversize, Brand New

This is a room-swallowing piece: an oversize 12 x 18 Agra woven by hand in India, knot by knot, in wool on a cotton foundation. The drawing follows the antique Agra manner, a continuous gold vine spreading over a deep wine red field, and the weave is heavy enough that the rug lies dead flat the moment it is rolled out, as you can see in the floor shots. It has never been used: the pile still stands full and even, the ivory fringe is untouched, and the sides are tight and straight. Every rug we ship, including this Oriental rug, leaves us with a written certificate of authenticity recording size, material, weave and origin.

Design and Motifs

There is no medallion here. The field carries an all over design built from thick gold vine stems that branch, cross and fold back on themselves, ending in serrated forked leaves, lobed palmettes and small 6 petal blossoms. Repeating through the pattern is a spreading tree form with a clustered crown, drawn in outline rather than filled, which gives the field an airy, architectural rhythm across the full 18 foot length. The broad main border runs a large scrolling palmette and cloud band motif on a gold ground, with claret arabesques curling between each element and pale pink and ivory shading inside the big flower heads. Two narrow guard bands, one carrying a chain of diamonds and star rosettes, frame the border on either side and stop the pattern from crowding the field. Corners resolve cleanly, which on a rug this large is a real test of the cartoon and the weaver.

A Deep Red Field with Antique Gold, Brown and Sage

The ground is a saturated wine red that shifts between oxblood and cherry as the light crosses the pile, dark in the close-up macro shots and warmer in the wide floor views. Against it, the vinework is worked in three separate golds: a pale straw gold for the fine outlines, a mid honey gold for the leaf bodies, and a deeper old-brass tone that reads almost brown where the stems thicken. Sage green appears quietly, in the shaded halves of leaves and in small circular medallions inside the border scrolls, and a soft blush pink lights the interior of several palmettes. The border ground is a flat antique gold that lifts the whole rug and keeps the red from turning heavy. Ivory shows in the guard stripes, in the fringe, and in the lightest flower centers. It is a warm, candlelit palette, easy to build a room around with walnut, brass, cream plaster or dark green upholstery.

Agra Weaving and Indian Craftsmanship

Agra, in northern India, has been a carpet-weaving city since the Mughal court workshops of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the classic Agra look, generous scale, all over vine drawing and a wide floral border, comes straight out of that tradition. India today is where most of the world's good contemporary hand-knotted work is made, and this piece shows why: the knotting on the reverse is regular line after line, the pile is clipped to an even medium height that protects the drawing, and the selvedges and end finishes are done by hand. A rug of these dimensions takes a wide loom, a team of weavers working in step for many months, and enough wool bought at one time to keep the reds and golds consistent from one end to the other. Rugs at this scale belong with our other oversized rugs, sized for a great room, a long formal dining table, a library or a lobby, and it ships free anywhere in the 50 states.