12' x 18' Chinese Aubusson Flat Weave Rug | French Crowned Crest Medallion | Recent, Perfect Condition

This is a full palace piece: 216 inches long, woven entirely without pile, in the French Aubusson tapestry manner. The drawing is court formal, a crowned crest medallion floating on a soft camel panel, framed by an ivory quatrefoil reserve, set against a deep black field crowded with gold acanthus scroll. Because there is no pile to hide behind, every line in an Aubusson has to be drawn correctly in the weave itself, and the symmetry here holds across all 4 quarters of the design. It handles like heavy cloth rather than a thick rug, which is exactly why decorators reach for flat weaves in rooms with low door clearance, long dining tables and rolling chairs. Among oversize 12 x 18 rugs this one is unusually graphic, and it arrives with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is genuine hand-woven work.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a small oval shield flanked by 2 crowns and crossed foliage, set inside a camel panel outlined with a thin rose and olive fillet. Above it sits a full crown with trophy arrows and ribbon, a direct borrowing from 18th century French state design. The ivory reserve around it swells into 4 lobes, each filled with a rayed medallion, hanging swags, ribbons and tassels drawn in pale rose, dove grey and soft celadon. The black ground beyond carries large scrolling acanthus arms that curl into rosettes, with slender vines and small buds threading between them and an oval cartouche centered on each of the 4 sides. The border system runs in 3 bands: a braided guard, a wide egg and dart row of ivory and gold ovals, and an outer camel field edged with a second braid. Everything is mirrored, top to bottom and left to right, which is how a design of this scale keeps its composure across 18 feet.

The Black, Gold and Camel Palette

The field is a dense, matte black with a faint navy cast in daylight, and that darkness is what makes the rest of the palette read. Over it the scrollwork moves through antique gold, honey, apricot and a warm tobacco brown, with cream and ivory used for the highlights along the leaf edges so the volutes appear to turn in space. The inner reserve is a clean butter ivory, the center panel a light camel, and inside that zone the shading drops into delicate pale tints: rose, soft grey blue, oyster and quiet sage green picked out in the leaves, ribbons and rosette centers. The outer border is a dusty brown with a rosy undertone, which keeps the black from hitting a hard edge against the floor. It is a formal scheme rather than a bright one, and it sits well over dark hardwood, honed limestone or a pale stone floor like the one in the photographs.

Woven in China in the French Aubusson Tradition

Aubusson is a town in central France whose workshops supplied flat tapestry floor coverings to French interiors from the 17th century onward. The style outlived the original ateliers, and today the best hand-woven Aubusson reproductions come out of Chinese workshops that weave them the traditional way, by hand on a cotton foundation, wool weft packed tight so the surface is smooth and the drawing stays crisp. A piece this size represents many months on the loom for a team of weavers, since a flat weave gives the maker nowhere to correct a wandering curve. The back, shown in the final photograph, carries the loose weft tails typical of genuine tapestry weaving rather than machine production, along with the workshop tag reading rug number 5503, 12 x 18. If you are weighing this against knotted pile work, our guide to what separates a Persian rug from a broader Oriental rug is worth reading before you decide.