12' x 18' Oriental Palace Rug | Black Wool & Silk Floral Medallion | Made in China

At 12' x 18' this is a true palace-scale piece, one of the few sizes that can hold a formal room without leaving a strip of bare floor at every wall. The pile is wool with silk highlights, knotted on a cotton foundation, and the drawing follows the classical formula: a burgundy lobed medallion centered on a deep black field, sage green spandrels at the 4 corners, and a wine main border framed by pale celadon guard stripes. It is a formal, traditional Oriental rug in excellent condition, with full even pile, straight sides and clean ivory fringe, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a multi-lobed medallion on a burgundy ground, built outward from a small star rosette through rings of tiny blossoms, curled ivory cloudbands and feathered leaves, with a pendant finial at each end. Around it the black field is not left empty for a moment: large curling acanthus and arabesque scrolls in ivory sweep through the whole ground, carrying open roses, tulips, carnations and small clusters of teal berries along their length. The corner spandrels repeat the palette in reverse on sage green, each anchored by a small teal cartouche filled with flowers. The main border runs a wine ground with an alternating rose and palmette vine, and the narrow celadon guard bands on either side carry a lighter version of the same scroll, which keeps the frame from competing with the field. Drawing at this scale is the hard part, and the vine work stays balanced end to end.

A Black Field With Wine, Sage and Rose

Black is the anchor here and it does the work of making every other color look lit from within. Against it the ivory scrollwork reads almost white, the silk-highlighted leaves shift between forest green and pale gold as you walk around the rug, and the roses sit in soft rose-mauve and dusty pink with deeper burgundy shading at the petal edges. The medallion ground and the main border share the same wine burgundy, which ties the center to the frame, while the sage green spandrels and guard stripes cool the whole thing down and stop the red from taking over. Teal blue appears in small doses, in the berry clusters, the corner cartouches and the outlines of individual flowers, and it is the detail that keeps the palette from reading as a simple red and black scheme. Under lamplight the silk accents lift and the black field goes glossy; in daylight it settles into a matte, deeply saturated ground.

Made in China: Weave and Scale

This rug was hand-knotted in China, where workshops have spent decades weaving the classical Oriental repertoire to a high standard, with fine wool, careful color separation and the tight knotting a curved-line floral design demands. The reverse, shown next to a ruler in the last photograph, tells the story: straight rows, small uniform knots and clean color changes, with a cotton warp and weft and hand-knotted fringe at each end. That density is what lets the weaver hold thin ivory outlines and single-knot flower centers across an 18 foot length without the pattern going soft. Pieces at this scale belong in the oversize Oriental rugs group, and this 12' x 18' is heavy enough to need two people to move, yet it still ships free anywhere in the 50 states.