6'6" x 10' Persian Tabriz Rug | Ivory Field, Coral Border | Wool with Silk, Excellent Condition

This is a quiet, well drawn Persian Tabriz in the size most American living rooms actually want, and it reads far lighter in a room than a red ground rug of the same dimensions. The field is a soft ivory that runs almost white under daylight and warms to cream under lamps, framed by a coral main border that keeps the whole piece from feeling washed out. The pile is wool carrying a blend of silk, which is why the light blue arabesques and the pale petals inside the medallion catch light at a different angle than the wool around them. Woven in the 2000s on a cotton foundation, it has full even pile, tidy original fringe and no repairs, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity. Buyers cross shopping 7x10 Persian rugs will notice how much finer the drawing is here than in the usual village work at this scale.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a round medallion built in concentric rings: an inner 16 petal rosette in burgundy and ivory, a ring of paired heart shaped scrolls, then a wide band of small shield shaped cartouches in sky blue outlined in dark navy, finished with a scalloped crown of lobed points. A slender pendant palmette drops from the top and bottom of the medallion along the long axis. Around it the ivory field is filled with a continuous system of thin brown vines carrying rosettes, split leaves, lotus blossoms and feathered serrated leaves, all drawn small and all mirrored across both axes so the composition stays balanced from either end. The 4 corners carry large ivory spandrels with broad curling arabesque leaves in pale blue. The coral main border runs a repeating sequence of eight lobed palmettes and rosettes joined by a navy vine, and it is flanked on both sides by navy guard stripes filled with a linked chain of small ivory cartouches, each holding a single blue floret. It is formal drawing done with a light hand rather than a heavy one.

The Ivory, Coral and Blue Palette

Ivory does the heavy lifting here. The ground is a warm undyed cream, close to the color of the cotton fringe, and because so much of the field is open the rug brightens a dark floor instead of absorbing it. Against that, the border is coral, a soft terracotta salmon with a little brick in it rather than a hot red, and in the roll shot you can see it deepen where the pile leans. The blues come in two registers: a clear sky blue used for the medallion cartouches, the arabesque leaves and the small florets in the guard bands, and a near black navy used for outlining every motif and for the guard stripe grounds, which is what gives the drawing its crispness. Small accents of deep burgundy sit in the medallion center and scattered through the field flowers, and there are occasional touches of muted sage green in the border palmettes. Warm brown vines and pale tan shading tie the whole thing to the ivory ground. Overall it is a calm, light, slightly rosy palette that works with walnut furniture, cream walls and burgundy upholstery.

Tabriz Weaving and Quality

Tabriz sits in northwest Persia and has been the commercial and technical center of Persian weaving for generations, known for the Raj system, for tightly controlled cartoon based drawing and for a range that runs from sturdy 40 Raj workshop goods up to 70 Raj collector pieces. What marks a good Tabriz is the curved line: circular medallions, flowing vines and clean spandrel outlines only hold together when the knot count is high enough to draw a true arc, and this rug holds those arcs all the way around the medallion crown and through the border palmettes. The back photograph shows an even, tightly packed knot bed on a cotton warp and weft with no lumps or pulls, and the fringe is original and secure at both ends. Wool with a blend of silk gives the surface a low sheen and makes the pale blues read brighter than the surrounding wool. At 6'6" x 10' it is heavy enough to lie flat without a pad shifting under it, and the pile depth in the close photographs shows a rug that has been kept rather than walked hard.