5'4" x 8'3" Indian Wool & Silk Oriental Rug | All Over Floral | Red Field, Black Border

This 5'4" x 8'3" hand-knotted rug is a workshop-grade piece in the classical tradition, woven with a wool and silk pile on a cotton foundation. The silk is used where it earns its keep, in the flower heads and the fine outlining, so the surface changes character as you walk around it: matte and dense in the red ground, bright and almost wet-looking in the cream palmettes. It has never been on a floor, the pile stands full and even from edge to edge, and the fringes and selvages are intact as woven. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity recording its size, materials, construction and origin.

Design and Motifs

The field carries a true all over composition with no central medallion, which is why the rug sits so comfortably under furniture: there is no focal point to block. A continuous vine system runs the full 8'3" length, carrying large lobed palmettes, open rosettes, serrated lotus blossoms and small budding sprays, each one drawn slightly differently rather than stamped out by repetition. Look at the close-ups and you will find spiky navy-outlined florets, cream fan-shaped blooms and tiny rose-colored flower heads tucked into the vine joints. The frame is built in 4 bands: a plain red outer edge, an ivory outer guard of scrolling vine, a wide black main border set with oval cartouche medallions in cream, tan and gold alternating with pink arabesque sprays, and an ivory inner guard that separates the border from the field cleanly. This kind of balanced, repeating drawing is exactly what buyers of all over floral rugs look for, since the pattern reads as texture from standing height and as detail up close.

A Red Field Framed in Black

The ground is a warm madder-toned red that deepens toward burgundy in the pile shadow, and the vine scroll that travels across it is a pale ivory, almost champagne, so the drawing stays legible without shouting. The flower heads work through a tight palette: clotted cream, bone ivory, soft tan and biscuit gold, lifted by navy blue outlining and the occasional clear mid-blue center, with pinpricks of rose pink and dusty sage green in the leaves. The main border reverses the scheme entirely, a near-black ground that makes the cream and gold cartouches glow, with raspberry pink arabesques curling between them. The ivory guard stripes act as a quiet hinge between the two. In practice this is a red rug that behaves like a neutral, because the black frame grounds it against dark wood floors and the cream drawing keeps it from reading heavy in a smaller room.

Hand-Knotted in India

India is where most of the world's best contemporary hand-knotted weaving is now done, and this piece shows why. The weavers work the classical floral vocabulary on upright looms with a cotton warp and weft, tying each knot by hand, then clipping the pile low enough that the curved lines of the vine stay crisp through the corners. The back photograph shows tight, regular rows and clearly defined knot nodes, the mark of a controlled weave rather than a rushed one, and the silk content gives the cream motifs a reflective edge that separates them from the wool around them. If you are weighing this against a Persian piece, our guide on what actually separates a Persian rug from an Oriental rug explains the difference in origin, knot and drawing without the usual sales talk. At 5'4" x 8'3" this one is honest, new, never walked on, and built to be used.