13'4" x 19'8" Persian Tabriz Rug | Sheik Safi Ardabil Medallion Design | 1970s, Perfect Condition

A rug of this scale is a commission, not a stock item, and this one was woven in the 1970s on a Tabriz workshop loom wide enough to carry 13'4" x 19'8" without a seam. The drawing is the Sheik Safi design, the workshop copy of the great shrine carpet of Ardabil, laid out here with a cream sunburst medallion floating over a midnight blue field of scrolling vine. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, the ends and sides are intact, and the colors have the depth of dyes that have had 50 years to settle. This is a true palace piece and sits with our other oversize Persian rugs, shipped free to all 50 states with a certificate of authenticity issued by Rugs.net.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a large ivory medallion filled with interlaced saffron arabesque and a small red rosette at the exact heart of the rug, ringed by 16 pointed lobes that push out into the blue. Above and below the medallion hangs a lamp on a corded chain, the motif that identifies the Sheik Safi drawing and the one detail that tells you the weaver was working from the shrine cartoon rather than a generic Tabriz medallion. The field around it is never empty: a continuous lattice of thin turquoise and gold vine stems carries rosettes, serrated leaves and hundreds of coral and rose blossoms, with a ring of oval and shield shaped cartouches set at measured intervals so the eye reads order rather than clutter. Ivory spandrels drawn with the same vine work close each of the 4 corners. The main border runs a stately alternation of long coral cartouches and smaller pale medallions, framed by yellow and pale blue guard stripes, and one of those outer guards carries a small woven cartouche with Persian script, the traditional inscription panel of this design.

A Study in Navy, Emerald and Coral

The field is a deep saturated navy, closer to midnight than royal, and because it covers so much ground it behaves like a dark wood floor: everything placed on it gains contrast. Against that navy the weaver worked an unusually broad palette. The medallion and spandrels are cream to buttermilk with olive and antique gold tracery, the blossoms run from soft salmon and dusty rose to a clear cherry red, and small hits of turquoise, sky blue, emerald and pistachio green appear inside the cartouches to keep the field lively at close range. The most striking color decision is the main border, which is a true bottle green, an uncommon choice in Tabriz work and the thing that separates this rug from the standard red and navy formula. Coral palmettes sit directly on that green, with a pale blue outer guard carrying blush and gold vinework. Under warm light the navy softens toward indigo and the corals warm up; under daylight the green border reads cooler and sharper.

Woven in Tabriz, Northwest Persia

Tabriz sits in the northwest corner of Persia and has been the country's design capital for centuries, the city where cartoon drawing, dyeing and master weaving were organized into workshops rather than left to village improvisation. Tabriz weavers measure fineness by Raj, the count of knots per gereh across the width, and the discipline that system enforces is visible here in the straightness of the borders and in the way the medallion resolves symmetrically across almost 20 feet of length. The Sheik Safi cartoon is the most demanding thing a Tabriz workshop takes on, because the vine has to keep its rhythm over an enormous surface and any drift shows immediately. On this piece the cotton warp and weft are pulled tight, the 3/8" wool pile is even from end to end with no low spots, and the selvedges and fringes are original and sound. It is a workshop rug in the full sense, made by a team over a long period, and after 50 years it is still perfect.