6'7" x 9'9" Indian Chobi Rug | Wool | Ivory and Beige

A hand-knotted rug of 6'7" x 9'9" with a wool pile, made in India. From a few feet away it reads as one pale ivory plane with a wide tan border around it; up close the field fills with palmettes, serrated leaves and thin scrolling vines in gold, salmon and sage, and two deep burgundy palmettes anchor the long axis at either end.

The design

The drawing follows the Chobi habit of an all-over floral repeat laid out symmetrically rather than around a single medallion. A small rosette sits at the exact centre, ringed by sage petals and flanked by pairs of pink scrolling tendrils that curl back on themselves like ribbon. Above and below it run short columns of little four-petalled flowerheads, and the repeat spreads out from there in large lobed palmettes, broad notched leaves outlined in red, and rounded rosettes with pale blue-green hearts. The main border is drawn on tan and carries alternating shield-shaped palmettes and upright bouquets, each with small red berries among sage leaves. Two narrow guard stripes of linked flowerheads fence the border on either side, and the ends finish in plain ivory fringe.

The colour

The ground is ivory that shifts toward cream and warm beige as the pile catches the light, with faint horizontal variation across the width from the dye lots. The border steps up to a deeper tan with a gold cast, so the frame is clearly separate without a hard colour break. Against those neutrals the accents stay quiet: sage green inside the leaves and petals, salmon pink in the scrolling vines, gold in the larger palmettes. Only the two burgundy palmettes and the fine red outlines on the leaves carry any real weight of colour, and they read as dark points rather than as a contrasting scheme.

The making

Hand-knotted in India, wool pile throughout, rectangular and listed in perfect condition. The rug is new, with full even pile, straight selvages and clean fringe at both ends; the folded corner in the photographs shows the pattern coming through clearly on the reverse.