3' x 13'3" Persian Tabriz Runner Rug | Ivory Field, Repeating Rose Medallions | 60 Raj, Approx. 400 KPSI, Never Used

This is a workshop-grade runner rather than a village piece, and the difference shows the moment you look down the length of it. At 3' x 13'3" the drawing repeats four full medallions without a single wobble in the field, the wool is clipped low so the silk highlights sit proud of the pile, and the pile has never carried a foot. It arrives with a certificate of authenticity, and the original inventory tag on the back reads 6791 in the weaver's hand. A run of 13'3" is an awkward length to find in genuine hand-knotted work, which is exactly why a piece like this tends to be bought for a specific long hallway runner and then kept for decades.

Design and Motifs

The layout is a classic Tabriz floral repeat: round rosette medallions spaced evenly along the ivory field, each built from an 8 petal core of ivory and grey petals with a small gold and blue star at the centre, ringed by a terracotta halo and a wreath of blue cornflowers and crimson roses. Between the medallions sit large brown-outlined arabesque cartouches with rose blossoms at their hearts, flanked by serrated palmettes and curling saz leaves that lean over the field in the way only a curvilinear cartoon allows. Sprays of tiny blue and pink flower heads fill the ground so nothing reads as empty. The main border carries alternating ivory and rose palmettes on a salmon ground, separated by scrolling vines and small blue rosettes, and is fenced by narrow ivory guard stripes that keep the whole 13'3" length crisp. Corners are properly resolved, which is the first thing a dealer checks on a long runner.

A Soft Ivory and Rust Palette with Silk Lift

The field is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than white, and it changes tone as you walk the length because the low pile catches light differently from each end. Against it the rust reads as a soft salmon terracotta, used for the medallion grounds and the main border, warm rather than brick. The detail work is where the palette earns its keep: olive and sage greens in the leaves, mustard and pale gold in the vine tips and flower calyxes, cocoa brown in the arabesque outlines, and small hits of denim blue, crimson and dusty rose in the blossoms. Silk is placed selectively in the petals, leaf edges and vine tendrils, so those elements shimmer while the surrounding wool stays matte. The result is a quiet, light-toned runner that works over pale oak, limestone or grey stair carpet without fighting the room.

Tabriz Weaving and the Quality of This Piece

Tabriz sits in northwest Persia and has been the country's most disciplined commercial weaving city for generations, working from paper cartoons on a cotton foundation and measuring fineness in Raj, the number of knots per gereh across the width. This runner is a 60 Raj weave, roughly 400 knots per square inch, which is collector grade rather than commercial: 40 Raj is the everyday standard, 50 is fine, and 60 is where the drawing becomes fluid enough to render a curved vine and a 5 petal rose without steps in the line. You can see the count in the back photograph, where the knots are small and even and the rows lie flat. Holding that weave for 13'3" without drift in the field takes an experienced loom team, and the low, tight pile is what will let this piece take traffic in a hall for a very long time.