6'6" x 9'6" Persian Tabriz Rug | Ivory Wool and Silk Star Medallion | 2000s, Never Used

This 6'6" x 9'6" Persian Tabriz was knotted in the 2000s and has never been laid on a floor, so the wool and silk pile still stands at its full original height and the silk passes still flash when the light moves across them. It sits in the most usable band of 7x10 Persian rugs, big enough to anchor a sofa and two chairs, compact enough for a dining table or the foot of a bed. The drawing is fine, the outlines are crisp, and the ivory ground keeps the whole piece light rather than heavy and formal. It ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and 100% hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

A single radiating star medallion holds the center, built from tiers of lanceolate petals filled with tiny leaf and bud forms, with a small rosette at the very heart. There are no heavy corner spandrels, so the field is left open to a free-flowing all-over composition of thin vine scroll, lotus palmettes, lily-form blossoms and curling serrated leaves, mirrored top to bottom and side to side. Small floral pendants rise above and below the medallion to mark the long axis. The border system runs 5 bands deep: a wide soft coral main border of meandering vine and open rosettes, framed by narrow ivory guard stripes carrying a running leaf and cartouche motif, and finished with thin dark outer lines. Every element is outlined in near-black navy, which is what gives this drawing its precision at close range.

The Ivory, Coral and Blue Palette

The field is a clean undyed ivory, closer to warm cream than white, and it is the reason this rug lifts a dark floor instead of sinking into it. Against it the palette is deliberately quiet: pale sky blue in the petals, leaves and vine work, a sage grey-green in the serrated leaves and rosette centers, soft camel and tan in the palmette interiors, and small oxblood and deep red dots used as accents no bigger than a fingernail. The main border is a soft coral, a muted salmon rose that photographs slightly dustier in the flat overhead shot and warmer in the floor views, and it is the one broad block of color in the composition. Navy does all the outlining and the dark anchoring. Among ivory Persian rugs, this one is unusually easy to live with because the coral and blue read as neutrals in most rooms.

Tabriz Weaving and Quality

Tabriz sits in the far northwest of Persia and has been the country's workshop capital for centuries, the place where fineness is still measured in Raj, the knot count across a gereh of about 2.75 in of width. A rug like this is a workshop piece rather than village work: the curved line of the vine, the even taper of each petal and the unbroken symmetry across more than 9 ft of length only hold together on a tight loom with a disciplined master and a fine cotton foundation. The pile is wool with silk worked into the medallion and floral highlights, so the design has 2 different surfaces reflecting light at once. The back detail photographed against the ruler shows the knot nodes clean and regular right up to the selvage, and because the rug has never been walked on, the pile, the ends and the sides are all exactly as they left the loom.