2'8" x 25'11" Kazak Runner Rug | Ivory Field with Red & Navy Stepped Medallions | Brand New

A runner that measures 2'8" x 25'11" is not something you order out of a catalogue, it is something you find. Nearly 26 feet of hand-knotted wool runs in one unbroken piece, with an ivory field, a column of stepped diamond medallions in brick red and navy, and a rosette border that repeats cleanly from one end to the other. The pile is a short 3/8" of fine wool over a cotton foundation, which is exactly what you want underfoot in a corridor: dense, low, easy to walk on and easy to vacuum. It is brand new and has never been on a floor, so the drawing is crisp and the colours are at full strength. This piece ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted rug. If you have been measuring an upstairs landing or a galleried corridor and finding nothing long enough, this is the length that solves it, and it belongs in the same conversation as our other long hallway runner rugs.

Design and Motifs

The field runs as a repeating column rather than a single centrepiece, which is the right choice at this length because the eye never has to search for a focal point. Stepped, hook-edged diamond medallions alternate down the runner, some drawn on a navy ground with a red and ivory core, others on a brick red ground with a pale rose and grey centre, each one outlined with small serrated teeth in the Caucasian manner. Between them sit broad red star rosettes with grey blue hearts, their arms splitting into little antlers and curling tips. The ivory ground around all of it is filled with 4 petal navy flowers, 8 point red stars, tulip and candle sprays and small cruciform sprigs, so the open space stays busy without crowding. The border system has 3 bands: a narrow blue grey outer vine, a wide ivory main band carrying alternating red and navy rosette cartouches, and an inner navy stripe stamped with ivory and red triangles that reads as a row of arrowheads. This is the drawing collectors look for in geometric Kazak rugs, and the weaver held the repeat straight across all 4 corners.

A Detailed Look at the Colors

The ground is a warm ivory with a faint oatmeal and sand cast, not a bleached white, and it carries a soft natural variation across the width that gives the long run a gentle movement in daylight. Against it the dominant accent is a clean brick red, slightly tomato in the rosettes and deeper in the medallion grounds, drawn with a thin dark brown outline that keeps every shape sharp. The blue reads as a true indigo navy in the medallion fields and inner guard stripe, cooling the warmth of the ivory and red and giving the runner its depth. Secondary tones do most of the quiet work: a dusty blue grey appears in the rosette centres, the outer vine band and the small leaf forms, while a pale salmon rose softens the cartouche hearts and the medallion cores. Scattered chalk ivory highlights in the triangles and star centres lift the whole palette. The overall effect is a light, airy runner rather than a dark one, which matters in a hallway with limited daylight, and the ivory and red combination sits comfortably with oak, walnut, painted wainscot and cream stair paint alike.

Origin, Weaving and Quality

This runner was hand-knotted in Pakistan, where the Kazak repertoire of the Caucasus has been woven for decades by workshops that specialise in exactly this geometric vocabulary, and it is a good example of why so much of the world's best contemporary hand-knotted work now comes from that region. Each knot was tied by hand on a cotton warp, the wool is hand-spun and takes dye with the slight tonal variation that gives the ivory field its life, and the pile was shaved to a short 3/8" that suits traffic. The real test in a piece like this is discipline over distance: holding a 32" width true for 311" of weaving, keeping the border repeat evenly spaced and the selvedges straight, with no creeping or waisting along the length. The back photograph shows an even, tight knot grid and a clean, flat handle, and the fringes are original and intact. As an Oriental rug in brand new condition, it has its full service life ahead of it, and a wool pile at this density will outlast anything machine made by generations.