5'10" x 8'8" Oriental Wool & Silk Rug | French Savonnerie Sunburst Medallion | Brand New

This 5'10" x 8'8" rug is a hand-knotted reading of the French Savonnerie style, woven in fine wool with silk highlights on a cotton foundation. The drawing is formal and architectural: a square inner panel floats inside a wide floral border, and a radiating sunburst medallion sits dead center. It is a new piece, never used, with full pile from end to end and clean ivory fringe at both ends, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is a genuine Oriental rug, knotted by hand rather than machine made or tufted.

Design and Motifs

The composition works in three clear layers. At the heart sits a large circular sunburst, its beige ground broken by dozens of fine rays that radiate from a small central rosette, ringed first by a scalloped band of paired buds and then by a dense wreath of blossoms and curling leaves. That medallion rests on a deep field enclosed by a lobed, cusped outline whose points push out toward each corner in flowering sprays, tulips and palmettes. Around it runs a square panel of flowering vine, and beyond that the main border carries a chain of linked cartouches, each one filled with its own rosette, paisley and leaf arrangement. The outermost band is the detail that gives the rug its Savonnerie character: a row of shield shaped niches, framed like arcaded panels, each holding a symmetrical bouquet of tulips and star flowers. The 4 corners resolve cleanly, which is the mark of a carefully mapped cartoon rather than an improvised one.

Color: Black Ground with Beige and Gold Framing

The field reads as a true black, dense and matte, which is exactly what makes the rest of the palette work. Against it the inner panel, the medallion ground and the border cartouches glow in warm beige and camel gold, shading lighter where the silk catches light and deeper where the wool takes over. The florals are drawn in dusty rose, salmon, brick red and a soft plum, with slate blue and periwinkle petals for contrast and sage to olive green in the leaves and stems. Ivory and cream are used sparingly, as outlines and as the small white blossoms scattered across the black ground, so the eye keeps returning to the center. Because the silk sits only in the highlights, the color shifts noticeably as you walk around the rug, the beige turning almost apricot from one direction and cooling toward sand from the other.

Origin and Weaving Quality

This rug was made in Pakistan, where workshop weavers have built a long reputation for fine curvilinear work on the asymmetrical knot, using high grade wool with silk accents over a double wefted cotton foundation. A Savonnerie cartoon is unforgiving: every ray of the sunburst, every scalloped lobe and every arcaded border panel has to land on the correct knot or the symmetry collapses, so this design is only attempted by weavers working at a tight knot count. The last photograph shows the back and the fringe against a ruler, where the knot nodes sit close and even and the wool is clipped low so the drawing stays crisp. It is a manageable weight for a 6x9, easy to turn seasonally, and at this scale it suits a seating group, a formal dining table or a large bedroom without dominating the room. Browse more 6x9 hand-knotted rugs if you are comparing pieces in this size.