17'9" x 26'7" Oversize Oriental Rug | Ruby Red All Over Floral Vine | Made in India, Never Used

At 17'9" x 26'7", this is a genuine palace piece: 472 square feet of hand-knotted wool that was drawn, dyed and woven as one continuous composition rather than pieced or seamed. The ruby red field carries an all over floral vine in ivory, gold and sage green, framed by a wide camel and gold main border with three guard stripes on each side. The wool has the dry, springy handle of a well spun highland fleece, the cotton fringe is full and untrimmed, and the piece has never been laid in a room. Very few weavers will even attempt a loom this wide, which is why sizes like this account for a tiny fraction of our oversize Oriental rugs. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted, its materials and its origin.

Design and Motifs

The field is a classical all over design with no central medallion, so the pattern reads evenly no matter where furniture lands on it. Slender ivory vines loop across the red ground in a repeating lattice, and at each junction sits a different flower head: broad 8 petal rosettes, lanceolate serrated palmettes that fan open like feathers, tulip buds, and small five petal blossoms tucked into the empty ground. Curling saz leaves in sage and olive break up the gold, and four shield shaped cartouches sit in the outer quarters of the field where the vine work turns in on itself. The main border runs a repeating cartouche palmette flanked by mirrored acanthus scrolls and grape clusters, with a narrow inner and outer guard of gold tulip sprigs carrying tiny burgundy accents. The drawing stays tight and symmetrical from one end of 26'7" to the other, which on a loom this wide is the real test of the workshop.

Ruby Red, Gold and Sage Green

The ground is a deep ruby red that shifts noticeably with the light, reading almost black cherry in the low angle photographs and a clear warm crimson when seen flat from above. Against it the vine scrolls are a soft unbleached ivory, and the flower heads move through a full gold range: pale champagne at the petal tips, saturated saffron and honey at the centers, and a dull antique brass in the larger palmettes. Sage and olive green appear only in the leaves and in a few flower centers, just enough to cool the composition and keep it from going entirely warm. The border is a lighter camel and peach ground, which lifts the whole perimeter and makes the red field look deeper by contrast, and the guard stripes pick the red back up in tiny burgundy tulips so the two halves of the palette stay tied together. The finished effect is formal and warm rather than bright, and it sits comfortably with dark wood, brass and cream plaster.

Woven in India at Palace Scale

This rug was woven in India, which is today where most of the world's best contemporary hand-knotted work is made, and we say that without hedging. The traditional workshops there kept the vertical loom, the hand spun wool and the knot count that mass production abandoned, and they are among the very few able to build a loom wide enough for a 17'9" width and keep the tension even across the full 26'7" length. If you want the background on how that tradition relates to the Persian weaving centers it descends from, our guide on the difference between Persian rugs and Oriental rugs covers it properly. The pile here is pure wool on a cotton foundation, clipped at a medium height that shows the outlines crisply, with straight sides, square corners and hand finished selvages. Pieces at this scale rarely come to market twice in the same design, and you can see the rest of what we hold in the oversize rug sizes we carry.