3' x 5' Silk Oriental Rug | Ivory Field with Blue Medallion | Woven in China, Never Used

This 3' x 5' rug is hand-knotted entirely in silk, and the first thing you notice when you tilt it is the way the pile changes value: the ivory ground reads chalk white from one direction and warm cream from the other. It is a small piece with a very large amount of drawing packed into it, a round medallion set in a dense floral field, and the fineness of the weave is what allows the design to stay legible at this scale. The rug has never been used and the pile stands full and unflattened, as the back shot in the last photograph shows. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming the hand-knotted silk construction, size and origin. If you are shopping the whole group of 3x5 Oriental rugs, this is one of the finer-woven examples in the size.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classical floral medallion formula, drawn in full curvilinear line rather than village geometry. At the center sits a small 8 petal rosette inside a sunburst of lanceolate leaves, ringed by a deep blue medallion filled with its own lattice of vine and tiny blossoms, then by a second concentric halo of rosettes. The ivory field around it is not open ground: it carries an all-over scroll of split palmettes, curled leaves, rose sprays and tiny buds that mirrors itself along both axes, with floral pendants reaching out above and below the medallion. The main border is a wide gold band of linked cartouches and large lobed palmettes joined by a continuing blue vine, held between navy guard stripes and a narrow pearl-and-dart minor border on either side. The outermost stripe runs a small repeating vine on ivory, and the corner detail photograph shows how cleanly the border turns, with the corner motifs resolved rather than cut off.

A Study in Ivory, Blue and Rose

Ivory is the governing color and it does most of the work, lifting the whole rug and making the small motifs readable. Against it the palette is cool and slightly antiqued: inky navy in the medallion outline, guard stripes and vine work, a softer sky blue and powder blue in the leaves and secondary blossoms, and a quiet sage to olive green through the foliage. The warm notes are deliberately rationed, dusty rose and deep burgundy in the rosettes and palmette hearts, with touches of salmon pink and a pale apricot blush, all sitting on a soft old-gold ground in the main border. Because the pile is silk, every one of these colors has two readings depending on where you stand, so the field can look almost silver-blue from one end of the room and warm honey-cream from the other. There is no harsh contrast anywhere in it, which is why the rug sits comfortably with both dark wood floors and pale stone.

Woven in China: Fine Silk Weaving Tradition

This is an honest Made in China piece, and that is a compliment where fine silk is concerned. Chinese workshops have spent decades specializing in high knot count silk weaving in the classical floral styles, and the discipline shows here in the straight selvages, the even horizontal beat visible on the back, and the number of knots the weaver had available to turn a curved vine without breaking it into steps. The silk is cut to a low, tight pile so the drawing stays sharp, which is exactly what this density of design requires. As an Oriental rug at 3 by 5, it is light enough to hang or frame, and small enough to use as an accent by a bed, under a console or inside an entry where the silk sheen gets good raking light.