13'1" x 15'7" Chinese Aubusson Rug | Gold and Burgundy | Oversize

This carpet measures 13'1" x 15'7" and was woven in China in the French Aubusson manner, with a flat pile and a rectangular format. At that width it is an oversize piece, made for a room that can take a full border unbroken by furniture. Seen from the end, as in the second and tenth photographs, it reads as a mustard-gold field holding a single oval medallion of roses, framed first by a broad ivory band and then by a deep burgundy outer border.

The design

The field carries a pale foliate tracery worked tone on tone over the gold, visible close up in images 11 and 12 and almost lost at a distance. At its centre sits an oval cartouche of massed roses on ivory, ringed by narrow bands of rose, olive and grey-blue, with plumed scrolls set against it at each side and a crested acanthus spray above and below. The ivory band around the field is shaped rather than straight: it swells into lobed cartouches at the corners and at the centre of each side, and each of those holds a bouquet of roses, buds and brown flowerheads. The burgundy border is left plain except for large cream acanthus scrolls in the corners and a single pendant spray at the middle of each long side, as photographs 6 and 7 show. Outside that run a tan stripe, a thin white line and a dark brown edge.

The colour

The field is a gold with a green cast to it, closer to mustard than to brass, and it holds the eye because everything else around it is pale. Against that the outer border is a dark burgundy, near enough to claret that the cream acanthus reads sharply on it. The roses run from a deep rose pink through blush to near-white at the outer petals, with brown and russet flowerheads dropped in among them, and the leaves and ribbon bands carry a soft grey-green that keeps the pinks from turning sweet. The overall effect is a strong frame around a quiet centre.

The making

The spec table records the weave as hand-knotted with a flat pile, and the back, shown in the final photograph with the inventory tag still attached, is smooth and close with the selvedge turned and stitched. No fibre is recorded for this piece, so none is claimed here. The age is given as recent and the condition as perfect.