6' x 9' Chinese Silk Rug | Dragon Medallion & Shou Longevity Symbols | Perfect Condition

This is a hand-knotted Chinese silk rug in a camel beige and rust palette, built around a single dragon roundel set inside a diamond cloud collar. The whole field is sculpted: every outline has been hand-carved after weaving so the salmon fretwork and the medallion stand slightly proud of the ground, a finish that catches light the way only a silk pile can. It is a clean, unworn piece from the 2000's, with an even pile, straight sides, tight ivory fringe and no repairs anywhere. Among 6 x 9 rugs this is one of the more graphic pieces we carry, closer to an Art Deco composition than to a floral. Every rug we ship carries our certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a five-clawed dragon curled through clouds inside a salmon disc, ringed by celadon and brown bands with radiating spokes, then framed by a diamond of cloud collar petals in gold, ivory and burgundy with black bud accents at the points. Above and below the medallion sit 2 large shou longevity characters drawn in the angular archaic style, and left and right of it a pair of round longevity roundels close the axis. A stepped key fret frame in salmon pink runs around the field in 4 corners, with small stylized bats and cloud scrolls floating in the open ground. The inner guard is a rust band of ivory and black triangles with dots, and the wide beige outer border carries facing pairs of foo dogs, archaic ritual censers and tripod vessels drawn in the same flat, sculpted line. Each of the 4 corners is filled by a large dragon roundel, so the dragon theme repeats 5 times across the rug.

Color: Camel Beige, Rust Red and Salmon Pink

The field is a warm camel beige that reads closer to soft honey or light caramel under lamplight and cooler, nearer to sand, in daylight. All the drawing on it is salmon pink, a dusty coral tone rather than a bright pink, edged with fine pale olive and dark brown outlines that give the carving its shadow. The outer frame is a deep rust red, almost brick, and the same rust returns in the guard band and the selvage. Inside the medallion the palette widens: antique gold, olive and celadon green, aubergine, cream and jet black around a coral disc, with the dragon itself worked in brown, rust and ivory shading. The fringe is natural ivory. It is a warm, low-contrast room overall, easy next to cream upholstery, walnut floors and brass, with the rust border doing the work of grounding the whole composition.

Woven in China: Silk Pile and Hand-Carved Finish

China has woven silk pile rugs for the export market for well over a century, and the workshops that produce this type still do two things that machines cannot: they knot the silk onto a cotton foundation by hand, and then a finisher goes over the whole surface with shears to bevel every outline. You can see the result in the corner and rolled-edge photographs, where the pile drops away cleanly around each motif. The knotting here is fine and regular, the back is clearly legible motif for motif, and the sides and ends are firmly finished. As an Oriental rug this sits in the Chinese tradition rather than the Persian one, and the vocabulary reflects that: dragons, shou characters, censers and key fret instead of vines and palmettes. Silk takes dye with more depth than wool and holds a sharper line, which is exactly what a design this graphic needs.