6'10" x 10'4" Persian Tabriz Rug | Three Panel Pictorial of Persian Monuments | 400 KPSI, Never Used

This is a picture woven in knots rather than a rug with a pattern on it. Across 6'10" x 10'4" the weaver has set three separate scenes into the field, one above the other, each framed by its own cartouche and surrounded by animals, figures and architecture drawn small enough that you keep finding new details at the third and fourth look. It is hand-knotted in wool with silk worked through the highlights at roughly 400 knots per square inch, which is the density you need before a woven face can carry clouds, brickwork and the expression of a lion. Woven in the 2000's and never put on a floor, the pile stands full and the colors have not had a day of sun on them. Among fine 7x10 Persian rugs a pictorial of this complexity is unusual, and it ships with our certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The top panel shows a tiled palace behind a formal garden, with a water channel and fountains running down the center between clipped hedges and flowering shrubs, a tall cypress breaking the roofline and shepherds, goats and deer scattered in the ground around the oval frame. The center panel is the hunt: a crowned archer on a galloping horse, bow drawn full, with a lion leaping away across a rocky escarpment and a range of bare peaks behind. The lower panel is the most atmospheric, a ruined arcaded citadel of tiered arches with a broken stone arch at its center, palm trees on both flanks and birds crossing a clouded sky. Framing all three are narrow columns of standing figures, temple facades, stepped stone plinths and small arched vignettes, while the outer border runs a series of rectangular cartouches showing carved relief scenes, winged beasts, mounted riders and processions of attendants. A guard stripe of pacing lion figures on a deep maroon ground closes the whole composition, and a fine reciprocal vine border finishes the outermost edge.

A Warm Brown Palette Lit by Rust, Green and Sky Blue

Brown is the governing color, running from a dark chocolate in the cartouche frames and the lion guard stripe to soft fawn and taupe in the masonry and the rock. Around it the weaver has laid a broad bed of cream and beige, which is what keeps a design this busy legible from standing height. The skies are the surprise: pale sky blue broken with grey and white cloud, silk knotted into the lighter passages so the clouds catch light and shift as you walk past. Rust and terracotta warm the ground, the sand and the roof tiles, while sage and deep bottle green fill the hedges, the cypress and the tufts of grass. Small hits of rose, ochre and black sharpen the faces, the bridles, the flower heads and the fine outlines that separate one element from the next. The overall read in a room is warm and antique looking, a neutral brown and cream field with color that only asserts itself when you come close.

Tabriz Weaving and the Raj System Behind 400 KPSI

Tabriz sits in the northwest of Persia and has been the country's design capital for centuries, the place where cartoon drawing, dyeing and workshop weaving were organized into an industry. Fineness there is measured in Raj, the number of knots counted across a gereh of about 2.75 inches of width: 40 Raj is commercial goods, 50 is fine, and 60 Raj, equivalent to roughly 400 knots per square inch, is where collector quality begins. Pictorial work sits at the top of the Tabriz hierarchy because it cannot be faked by a good pattern; the weaver is reading a painted cartoon knot by knot, and any drift in the count distorts a face or a hand. On this piece the curves of the ovals stay true, the arcade arches repeat evenly, and the figures in the border cartouches are readable at a few inches across. That is workshop discipline, and it is why the best Persian Tabriz rugs are as often hung on a wall as walked on.