4'5" x 7' Persian Tabriz Rug | Wool and Silk | Ivory and Pink

A hand-knotted rug from Persia measuring 4'5" x 7', worked in wool with silk through the highlights. The field is ivory, close to undyed cream where the light runs along the pile, and it carries a small medallion of blue and salmon at the centre. A broad pink border frames it on all four sides. The rectangular format and the scale of the drawing suit a room where the rug will be seen whole rather than half under furniture.

Design

This is a medallion-and-corner Tabriz drawing, densely filled. The centre medallion is a pointed cartouche with a cream rosette at its heart, ringed by small flowerheads and set into a blue ground with a salmon outer lobe and curling cloudband finials above and below. Around it the ivory field runs with thin arabesque vines, serrated saz leaves, split palmettes and sprays of tiny wine-dark blossoms, all mirrored across both axes. The corners are filled with lavender spandrels outlined in dark brown, the one colour that steps outside the main palette. The main border alternates large dark rosettes with cream heart-shaped palmettes on a pink ground, held between narrow ivory guard bands of leaf and blossom.

Colour

The field is an unbleached ivory that photographs almost white in raking light and warms towards cream in the body of the pile. Against it the border reads as a soft salmon pink, cooler than coral, with a hotter rose picked out in single flowerheads. The blues come in two registers: a pale powder blue used for outlining vines and leaves, and a deeper slate blue reserved for the medallion ground and a scatter of small blossoms. A dark olive green and a mustard gold do most of the work in the leaves and palmette centres, with near-black and deep wine as the darkest notes. The lavender corner panels sit between the pink border and the ivory field and soften the change from one to the other.

Making

Hand-knotted in wool with silk, the silk used selectively so that the vine outlines and certain flowerheads catch light while the ground stays matte. The pile is short and evenly clipped, which is what allows drawing this fine to hold, and the outlines in the close photographs stay clean through the curves. The ends finish in plain ivory kilim and knotted fringe, and the rug is new, listed in perfect condition. It sits among the wool and silk pieces in our full range.