6'1" x 9'4" Persian Tabriz Rug | Wool and Silk | Ivory and Green

A 6'1" x 9'4" rectangular rug knotted in Persia in the Tabriz manner, with a pile of wool and silk. From a few feet away it reads as a pale, densely drawn carpet: an ivory field carrying a small rose-brown medallion, closed on all four sides by a soft green border. Up close the drawing is very fine, with each blossom outlined in dark brown and filled with three or four separate shades.

Design

The field is covered edge to edge with a scrolling vine that turns back on itself, carrying serrated palmettes, rosettes and lanceolate leaves rather than leaving any open ground. At the centre sits a lobed medallion with a small eight-lobed rosette at its heart, and a narrow pendant cartouche reaches out from it toward each end of the field. Green corner spandrels take up the same vinework in reverse, ivory tracery on a darker ground, and step down into the main border, which runs a procession of palmettes and flowering stems between two ivory guard bands. At one end a short panel of woven script is set into the outer guard stripe.

Colour

The ground is a warm ivory that carries a faint sheen where the silk catches the light. Against it the border and spandrels are a muted green, close to moss, which keeps the pale field from spreading past its edges. The medallion is a soft rose-brown, and the same family of rust and coral tones repeats through the border blossoms. Cooler notes of blue, from a pale sky to a deep indigo, sit inside the leaves and petals, while the outlining is done in a dark brown that draws every motif cleanly.

Making

Hand-knotted in wool with silk worked through the pattern, on a cotton foundation finished with plain ivory fringe at both ends. The reverse, shown next to a ruler, is tight and regular, which is what allows drawing at this scale in a rug of this size. The spec table dates it to the 2000s and records it as unused, and the pile stands full and even across the whole surface with no visible wear.