5' x 8' Silk Oriental Rug | Gold Field, Tabriz Medallion Design | Raised Carved Pile, Brand New

This 5' x 8' rug is hand-knotted entirely in silk on a cotton foundation, with the pile clipped at two heights so the flowers, vines and medallion outlines stand up in relief above the ground. The field is a deep antique gold that turns almost olive as you walk around it, the light catching the silk from one direction and dropping away from the other. A radiating ivory medallion sits at the center of an all over floral field, framed by a wide cream border of scrolling vine and rosettes. It is brand new, never laid in a home, in perfect condition, and ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a hand-knotted silk piece.

Design and Motifs

The layout follows the classic Tabriz medallion formula. At the center is a small red and ivory rosette ringed by a beaded band, then a tier of pale petals, then a broad wreath of yellow and ivory palmette leaves radiating outward like a sunburst, each leaf filled with its own miniature flower head. Above and below the medallion hang cusped pendants in ivory, and each of the 4 corners carries an ivory and salmon spandrel filled with curling arabesques, large soft green palmettes and open blossoms. Between them the gold field is covered edge to edge with fine scrolling vinework, curled saz leaves, tiny 5 petal rosettes and sprays of buds, drawn small enough that the pattern stays busy without ever going flat. The main border runs a meandering vine with alternating palmettes and daisy heads on cream, flanked by 4 narrow guard stripes, the innermost of which is a delicate zigzag ribbon. The carving along every outline is what gives the surface its sculpted, almost embroidered depth.

A Field of Antique Gold

Gold is the whole story here, and it is not a flat yellow. The ground reads as old gold with an olive cast, deepening toward bronze where the pile lies away from the light and brightening to warm honey where it lies toward it, which is the natural play of silk rather than any variation in dye. Against that ground the drawing is worked in ivory and cream, with butter yellow inside the medallion leaves, soft rose and blush pink in the rosettes, dusty salmon in the spandrels, muted sage and seafoam green in the larger palmettes, and cool slate blue in the smaller flower heads and leaf tips. A few pinpoints of true red at the medallion core and scattered through the field keep the palette from going too quiet. The border is a full ivory, several shades lighter than anything in the field, so the gold center is clearly framed rather than blending into the edges.

Chinese Silk Weaving and the Quality of the Knot

This rug was hand-knotted in China, where workshops have specialized for decades in fine silk pile worked to classical Tabriz drawings, and where the carved or embossed finish seen along every outline here is a local signature. The ruler in the detail photograph shows how tightly the knots are packed: the vine scrolls stay curved and continuous, the medallion leaves each hold a separate flower, and the guard stripes hold clean geometry at a scale that a coarse weave simply cannot resolve. Silk takes dye differently from wool, which is why the field shifts tone as you move and why the ivory reads as luminous rather than chalky. If you are weighing where a piece like this sits in the wider market, our guide to what separates a Persian rug from an Oriental rug is worth reading before you buy.