6' x 9'5" Silk Hereke Design Rug | Radiant Petal Medallion | Signed Cartouche

This is an all silk, hand-knotted rug drawn in the classic Hereke manner, and the first thing you notice is the light. Silk pile changes tone as you walk around it, so the olive field reads deep and almost bronze from one end and pale gold from the other. The single medallion fills nearly the whole field, a scalloped ivory cartouche packed with radiating petals, and the drawing is held to a hair-fine line that only a very dense weave can carry. At 6' x 9'5" it sits comfortably as a 6x9 room rug under a seating group or a modest dining table, and it is equally at home on a wall, which is where a lot of silk pieces of this quality end up. The piece is new and never used, the pile is full, the silk fringe is untouched, and a woven signature cartouche sits in the ivory end border. Every rug we ship carries our certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The composition is one enormous sunburst medallion, built from 16 lanceolate petals that spin out from a tight central rosette of curled leaflets. Alternating petals carry different fills: some hold feathered navy and black leaf sprays, others hold sage and gold arabesque vinework on a pale ground, and the widest ones are drawn as peach boteh with serrated edges. The medallion is outlined by a scalloped, cloud-banded cartouche in deep aubergine, set against a ground of dense gold hatching that reads almost like woven brocade up close. Above and below, the olive field is left mostly open and scattered with small sprays and turquoise vine, which is what makes the medallion look as large as it does. The main border is the real signature of the Hereke drawing: a procession of oversized boteh paisleys in gold and cream on a deep teal blue ground, each one filled with its own miniature scrolling garden and separated by small floral finials. Inside and outside that band sit narrow guards of red and gold scrollwork, then a plain olive outer stripe and a fine ivory rosette band at the very edge, the same band that carries the weaver's cartouche.

A Field of Olive Green, Beige and Peach

The field is a soft olive green with a yellow cast, closer to dried moss than to emerald, and it shifts toward antique gold where the light catches the silk. Against it the medallion ground is a warm beige worked over with ivory and gold, so the center of the rug carries almost no strong color at all and instead glows. The accents do the work: peach and salmon on the broad petals, inky navy and near-black on the feathered leaf sprays, sage and celadon in the vine fills, and small hits of coral red in the outlines. The border reverses the balance completely, with a saturated teal to navy ground carrying gold paisleys, clear red outlining and touches of turquoise and cream, which frames the quiet field in a band of real color. Outer guards are ivory with red and marigold scrollwork, and the selvedge finishes in a flat olive stripe. It is a palette that sits well with warm woods, brass, cream upholstery and green or blue walls, and it photographs far more subtly than a red ground rug of the same size.

The Hereke Design and Chinese Silk Weaving

The Hereke design comes out of the imperial workshop tradition, known for pure silk pile, extremely fine knotting and drawing that favors curved line over geometry. This example was hand-knotted in China, where the best silk workshops have spent decades mastering exactly that kind of drawing, and the evidence is in the detail: the petal outlines stay smooth through their full curve, the boteh in the border repeat cleanly at scale, and the tiny rosettes in the outer guard are only a few knots across. A rug like this is an Oriental rug in the proper sense of the term, and it is honest about where it was made. The back shows a tight, even knot structure with no slack, the silk fringe is original and full, and the woven cartouche at one end marks the workshop. If you are shopping 6x9 area rugs and want the sheen and the fineness that only silk gives, this one is in perfect, unused condition and ready to lay down or hang.