15'9" x 20'7" Chinese Needlepoint Rug | Ivory & Gold Floral Panels | Oversize Palace Size

This is a true palace piece, 15'9" x 20'7" of handmade wool laid out as 48 floral panels inside a deep aubergine trellis. Needlepoint work of this scale is uncommon, because the stitch is slow and every bouquet is drawn individually rather than repeated from a block, and very few pieces were ever made large enough to cover a formal room end to end. The surface is low and smooth with no long pile, which is exactly why decorators reach for needlepoint in rooms where chairs are pulled in and out constantly. It belongs with the oversize palace size rugs we stock for ballrooms, great rooms and long dining rooms, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is a genuine handmade piece.

Design and Motifs

The field is organized as a grid of 48 shaped panels, 6 across by 8 down, each one holding its own bouquet. The panels alternate between a soft gold ground and an ivory ground, so the field reads as a checkerboard from across the room and as a garden catalogue up close. No two bouquets repeat exactly: one panel carries red peonies with white lilies and pale blue buds, the next a yellow rose with a striped tulip and scarlet anemones, another a spray of white roses over sage foliage. Separating them is a lattice of aubergine bands studded with gold rosettes, arrow finials and small cross medallions at every intersection, drawn with the crisp stepped outlines the needlepoint stitch produces naturally. The main border is a run of aubergine palmettes under gold arches, and the outer guard is a leafy ivory scroll of oak-like foliage that frames the whole 4 corners cleanly.

Color Palette: Beige, Ivory, Gold and Aubergine

The two ground tones do the heavy lifting: a warm beige gold, somewhere between wheat and old brass, and a clean ivory with a faint cream cast. Against those, the aubergine lattice and border read almost black in shadow and resolve into deep plum and wine under direct light, which is what gives the rug its weight and keeps a pale field from looking washed out in a big room. The flowers supply everything else in small doses, brick red and rose pink in the peonies and anemones, butter yellow in the roses and tulips, chalk white in the lilies, powder blue in the buds, and a muted range of sage, olive and forest in the leaves. The gold accents inside the lattice, ochre scrolls and small lilac rosette centers, tie the panel grid back to the border. It is a palette built for cream, sand, camel and dark wood interiors, with enough plum to anchor burgundy or aged leather seating.

Origin and Workmanship

This piece was made in China, where the great floral needlepoint workshops built their reputation on European cabbage rose and panel designs executed entirely by hand in wool on a cotton canvas foundation. Every stitch is placed one at a time by a worker following a painted cartoon, and on a piece this size that is months of bench work before the edges are bound and the rug is washed. The detail photograph with the ruler shows the count and the evenness of the stitch across the back, which is the honest measure of quality in this type of work: consistent tension, no puckering, straight panel lines over almost 21 feet of length. Within the wider family of Oriental rugs the needlepoint sits in its own category, flat surfaced and formal rather than pile woven, and if you want the distinctions laid out plainly our guide to Persian rugs versus Oriental rugs covers it. Condition here is excellent, with full even surface and clean borders throughout.