6'10" x 7'1" Square Chinese Oriental Rug | Dome Medallion Minnici Design | New & Never Used

A true square is one of the hardest formats to find in a hand-knotted rug, and this one measures 6'10" x 7'1", close enough to a perfect square that it sits under a round or square dining table without any visual pull to one side. The weave is 100% hand-knotted wool at a 3/8" pile on a cotton foundation, finished with hand-tied cream fringe at both ends. The drawing is the Minnici dome pattern: one enormous radiating medallion that opens out of the center like the inside of a domed ceiling, with 8 spandrel panels of paisley boteh filling the corners of the field. It has never been used and arrives in perfect condition, with a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is a genuine hand-knotted piece.

Design and Motifs

Everything in this rug radiates from a single point. At the exact center sits a small navy rosette inside an 8 petal flower head, ringed by a pale ivory and pistachio disc; from there the design breaks into a 16 point star, then into long triangular rays that reach all the way out to the border, each ray filled with its own tiny lattice of vines, cypress forms and stepped panels. It is the classic gonbadi or dome layout, drawn the way the underside of a dome looks from directly below, and the square format is exactly the shape that layout wants. Between the rays, 4 large paisley boteh cartouches occupy the corners, each one outlined in burgundy and packed with vases, birds and curling arabesque. The main border is a run of alternating medallions: hexagonal burgundy rosettes and elongated blue and ivory cartouches, separated by reciprocal guard stripes. Look at the close-up of the pile and you can see how fine the outlining is, single knot lines holding the curve of every scroll, which is what keeps a design this busy from turning muddy.

A Burgundy, Slate Blue and Black Palette

Burgundy is the color that organizes the rug. It carries the main border, outlines the 4 corner boteh, fills the hexagonal border rosettes and returns as fine tracery inside the dome rays, a deep wine tone rather than a bright red. Against it the field runs cool: slate and sky blue in the radiating panels, a soft pistachio gray in the discs around the center, and dense black grounds inside the corner cartouches and the outer guard stripe that make the lighter drawing pop. Cream and ivory do the structural work, edging the medallion points and the border cartouches so the pattern stays readable from standing height, and the fringe picks up the same undyed cream. The surprise is the pink: a dusty rose appears in the small floral heads and in the palmettes along the inner field, and it softens the whole palette in daylight. Navy anchors the deepest shadows. It is a genuinely multi-colored rug, so it will sit happily on dark wood or over a pale stone floor.

Woven in China to Fine Oriental Standards

This is an honest Made in China piece, and the workshops that produce this grade of goods are very good at it. Chinese weaving centers have spent decades reproducing classical dome and medallion drawing on cotton warps with tightly spun wool, and the result here is a level surface, straight sides, an even 3/8" clip and a fringe tied by hand rather than machine-serged, all of which you can see in the detail and ruler photographs. As an Oriental rug it belongs to a broad family of hand-knotted work, and it competes on the things that actually matter in a rug: knot density fine enough to hold a curved line, wool with enough lanolin to take foot traffic and stay lustrous, and dyes that read as depth rather than flatness. Anyone shopping other hand-knotted Oriental rugs in a square format will find how few exist at this size and this level of drawing.