6' x 9' Roman Tapestry Rug | Baroque Sun Face, Cherubs & Fleur-de-Lis | Wool and Silk Flat Weave

This is a hand-woven pictorial tapestry rather than a pile rug, worked in fine wool with silk highlights on a cotton foundation, and finished at 6' x 9' with a dark blue selvedge on all 4 sides. The whole panel is built like a royal trophy composition: a crowned sunburst at the top, a scrolled cartouche holding a fleur-de-lis shield at the center, suits of parade armor stacked to either side, and a winged mask with flower garlands closing the bottom. Because it is a flat weave with no pile, it hangs beautifully flat against a wall and reads as a framed picture at 8 or 10 feet away, though it can equally be used on the floor in a low-traffic room. Every piece we ship travels with a certificate of authenticity. As a hand-woven Oriental rug in the European tapestry tradition, it sits in a category of its own, and it is one of the more unusual things we stock at this size.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the Baroque trophy panels woven for European court interiors in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the weaver has kept every element of that vocabulary. At the top, 2 winged cherubs sit on a cornice, each cradling a globe, framing an arched niche where a royal crown, a scepter and a hand of justice float above a radiant sun face with human features. Below that, blue drapery tied with knotted cords falls away to reveal the center: a large scrolled cartouche wrapped in acanthus leaves, enclosing 2 ovals, one navy field with 3 gold fleur-de-lis and one crimson field filled with a fine interlaced tracery. Flanking the cartouche are 2 full suits of engraved parade armor with plumed helmets, round shields, quivers of arrows, spears, maces and furled banners. At the base, a winged mask spreads over a scallop shell hung with rose and blossom garlands, with a coiled serpent motif beneath. The border is a continuous guilloche of interlocking rings, each medallion filled alternately with an 8 petal rosette and a fleur-de-lis, wrapped by a ribbon-and-wave inner band on all 4 sides.

A Warm Rust and Gold Palette with Indigo Depth

The dominant reading is warm: rust and terracotta through the border ground and the architectural framing, softening to apricot, honey gold and pale straw across the armor, the scrollwork and the sunburst, which is the lightest and brightest passage in the piece. Against that warmth the weaver set deep indigo and slate blue in the draped banners and in the shadowed ground behind the trophies, scattered with small gold stars, and the same navy returns in the fleur-de-lis oval at the center so the eye is pulled straight to it. The crimson oval beside it and the pink plumes on the helmets supply the only strong red notes. Sage and olive green run through the acanthus leaves and the flower stems, while rose pink, coral and cream flowers in the garlands add the softest tones. Skin passages on the cherubs and the winged mask are woven in ivory and pale beige with fine gray shading, which is where the silk content shows most clearly, catching light differently as you move past it. The overall effect is antique gold and sunset rust, with enough blue to anchor it, so it works well in rooms with warm wood, cream plaster or deep green upholstery. Browse more multi-colored rugs if this palette is the direction you are working in.

Origin and Weaving Quality

This tapestry was hand-woven in China, where a handful of workshops have specialized for decades in reproducing European court tapestry designs by hand on the loom. The quality tell is in the shading. A pictorial panel like this lives or dies on how many tones the weaver can blend into a face, a sheet of armor or a fold of drapery, and here the transitions in the cherubs' limbs, the beaten metal of the breastplates and the gradations inside the sunburst are handled with real control, with hatched color changes rather than hard blocks. The flat weave structure keeps the drawing crisp: with no pile to obscure it, every arrow shaft, ring of the guilloche border and petal of the garlands stays legible up close. The panel is finished with a clean blue selvedge and a firm, even edge, and at 6' x 9' it is large enough to fill a wall above a sofa or a stair landing without needing a frame. See our other 6x9 rugs for comparison on scale.