4'2" x 6'9" Persian Tabriz Rug | Tree of Life with Birds | Fine Kork Wool, Approx. 400 KPSI, Never Used

A small rug drawn at a large-rug level of detail. This 4'2" x 6'9" hand-knotted Persian Tabriz rug carries a full tree of life across an ivory ground, with songbirds perched in the branches and flower vases set at the base and under the arch. The pile is fine kork wool, the soft neck and shoulder fleece that takes dye cleanly and holds a crisp knot, and the weave runs at roughly 400 knots per square inch, which is what allows the thin black outlines around every bird and leaf to stay sharp. The piece has never been on a floor, the fringes are original and untouched, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The field is organized as an arched panel, its scalloped outline lifting toward the top of the rug where a deep blue vase sits under a cusped crown, flanked by two hanging wisteria columns. From the base of the field the tree of life climbs in mirrored pairs of flowering branches, each one ending in a bird: cream doves lower down, gold and rust plumed birds at the mid-field, all of them drawn in profile with fine outlining rather than blocked shapes. Small vases and low garden urns anchor the bottom corners, and curled paisley boteh forms tuck into the four corners of the field where the arch meets the border. Blossoms fill every remaining inch, from 8 petal rosettes to tiny 5 petal buds and clustered berries, which is unusual density for a rug this size. The main border runs a red ground with a continuous vine of turning palmettes and cupped ivory flowers, framed by paired guard stripes of rosettes and reciprocal blue meander.

A Closer Look at the Colors

The ground is a warm, slightly buttery ivory that reads closer to old parchment than to bright white, which keeps the rug easy to place against oak, walnut and warm plaster walls. Against it the weaver worked at least three separate blues: a deep indigo used for outlining and for the crown vase, a mid cobalt in the massed flower heads, and a clear sky blue that lights up the leaf sprays and the inner guard stripes. The reds divide the same way, a rustic brick red across the main border and a brighter tomato red in the small blossoms, so the border never flattens into a single block of color. Olive and moss green appear only in the leaves and in the star-shaped flowers of the border vine, used sparingly enough to stay a highlight. Gold ochre carries the birds' tails and a handful of branch stems, with ivory white picked out in the flower centers. Buyers searching ivory and beige Persian rugs will find this one brighter and more polychrome in person than a single photograph suggests.

Tabriz Weaving and Quality

Tabriz, in northwest Persia, measures fineness by Raj, the number of knots counted across a gereh of about 2.75 inches of warp. At roughly 60 Raj, or about 400 knots per square inch, this piece sits in collector territory: fine enough to render a bird's beak and a single curling tendril, and well above the count a workshop would use for a plain repeating pattern. The back, visible in the folded-over photograph, shows small even knots on a cotton foundation with clean straight rows and no visible abrash or drift in the drawing, evidence of an experienced weaver working from a full cartoon rather than improvising. The kork wool pile has a low sheen that shifts as you walk past it, and because the rug has never been used the pile stands at full height with no crushing at the ends. At 4'2" x 6'9" it suits a study, a reading corner between two chairs, the foot of a bed, or a wall mount where the tree of life can be read as a picture.