6'5" x 9'5" Persian Tabriz Rug | Wool | Red and Ivory

A 6'5" x 9'5" Tabriz knotted in Persia in wool, rectangular, with a deep red field, an ivory medallion at the centre and a wide ivory border carrying roses. Seen from across a room it reads as red and cream; up close the drawing is far busier than that, with blue, green and salmon worked into every curl of the vine.

Design

The centre holds a small blue cartouche with a red lozenge inside it, set in a cream medallion edged by scrolling acanthus leaves and ringed with open roses and eight-pointed rosettes. Pendants run off the medallion top and bottom. The red field around it is filled with thin curving vines, feathered leaves and small composite flower heads, loosely mirrored rather than exactly repeated from one half to the other. Broad cream corner spandrels close the field off with salmon-pink brackets and more scrollwork. The main border is ivory, drawn with a meandering vine, cabbage roses and palmettes, and it is flanked by narrow grey-green guard stripes of small paired flowers, with a red inner stripe separating border from field.

Colour

The field is a clear cool red, closer to crimson than to brick, and it holds the same value across the whole rug. Against it the medallion and border read as undyed cream and light ivory. The blues run from a chalky powder blue in the medallion scrolls to near-black indigo in the small flower centres. Two further colours do a lot of work: a soft salmon pink in the spandrel brackets and the inner border band, and a grey-green that turns bluer in the guard stripes and sage in the leaves. Ochre, apricot and a dull olive appear in single flower heads.

Making

Hand-knotted in wool in Persia, with a clipped pile short enough that the outlines of each flower stay sharp. The reverse photograph shows even, regular rows of knots and the same drawing legible from the back as from the front. The ends finish in plain ivory fringe and the sides are overcast. Condition is recorded as excellent.