6' x 6'1" Indian Tabriz Rug | Round | Black and Ivory

A round rug of 6' x 6'1", knotted by hand in India to a Tabriz design. At a glance it reads as a dark disc with a pale almond of a medallion at its centre, the field worked in a very small repeating pattern and ringed by a black border of scrolling leaves. The drawing is fine, with a great many knots given over to detail that only shows at close range.

The design

The field carries the Mahi or fish pattern: a diagonal lattice of tiny lanceolate leaves and rosettes, set so densely that from standing height it looks like texture rather than motif. The centre medallion is a pointed oval filled with its own miniature lattice and topped and tailed by small stepped pendants, with matching half-medallions breaking into the field at either side. Around the field runs a narrow guard band of linked rosettes, then the main border, black ground with hooked leaves and palmettes on a vine, then a plain outer line and the ivory fringe all the way round the circle.

The colour

The ground reads black at the border and a shade warmer in the field, closer to dark aubergine brown where the pile catches the light. Against it the pattern is picked out in ivory, straw gold and a soft brick red, so the whole field has a faint coppery cast. The medallion is ivory shading to honey, the coolest part of the rug. Small touches of sage green, slate blue and salmon appear in the border rosettes and in the guard stripes, and they keep the black from going flat.

The making

The rug is hand-knotted, worked at a fine enough gauge to hold the fish pattern cleanly at this scale, and the circle is drawn true with the border keeping an even width the whole way round. Condition is recorded as excellent, with full pile and clean ivory fringes on the selvedge. At 6' x 6'1" it sits at the top of the small rug range, the size that suits a round dining table or a stair foot.