7'10" x 10'6" Persian Tabriz Rug | Red Medallion & Ivory Spandrels | Khoy Village Weave

This is the northwest Persian medallion at its most confident: a broad madder red field held inside a stepped, hook edged center panel, with deep ivory spandrels opening the four corners and a navy main border carrying the whole thing around. Hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile, it measures 7'10" x 10'6", which puts it squarely in the most requested footprint we sell, the 8 x 11 Persian rug size. The pile is full and even across the whole surface, the ends and sides are sound, and the drawing has the slightly irregular, hand-drawn confidence that only village looms produce. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center panel is drawn as one enormous elongated medallion with serrated, hook tipped edges rather than the small round medallion most people expect, and the field inside it is filled rather than left plain. Along the vertical axis run stacked cypress and vase forms flanked by paired bird figures, with dark olive and brown palmettes anchoring each stage. Around them sit navy quatrefoil florets, eight petal rosettes, jagged ivory leaves and tiny star fillers. The ivory spandrels carry their own large serrated rosette medallions in red and navy, plus small orange latch hook boxes and sprays of blossoms. The main border alternates ivory cartouches holding four leaf rosettes with navy diamonds and small standing animal figures, a tribal signature you find on the best examples of these geometric Persian rug designs.

The Red, Ivory and Navy Palette

The field is a true madder red, clear and slightly cool rather than orange, and it moves gently across the width the way a hand-dyed wool always does. Against it the spandrels and the main border ground are a warm undyed ivory that has aged to a soft cream, giving the design a bright frame instead of a heavy one. The dark tone doing the structural work reads as navy so deep it approaches black, used for the outlines, the border diamonds and the quatrefoil florets. Scattered through the field are olive green, chocolate brown, saffron gold, rust orange, pale sky blue and small touches of rose pink and salmon. It is a busy palette that stays disciplined because red, ivory and navy hold roughly 80 percent of the surface.

Woven in the Tabriz Tradition of Northwest Persia

Tabriz sits in the far northwest of Persia and has been the commercial heart of Persian weaving for centuries, with the surrounding towns, Khoy among them, weaving to Tabriz drawing and Tabriz standards and selling within the Tabriz group. This piece is village work in that tradition: straight, decisive lines, angular corner resolution and no attempt at the fine curvilinear court style, which is exactly why it has character. The back photograph shows an even, tightly packed knot line on a cotton foundation with no slack rows, and the 3/8" wool pile still stands full from edge to edge. Wool from this region is famously tough, high in lanolin and slow to show traffic, which is why rugs of this type routinely serve a family for decades and still hand down.