7'10" x 9'10" Jaipur Rug | Mashad Medallion & Bird Border | New Wool Pile, Made in India

This is a new, never used piece hand-knotted in Jaipur on a cotton foundation with a hand-spun wool pile, and it is drawn in the classic Mashad manner: a deep burgundy field under a single lobed medallion, ivory corner spandrels, and a wide ivory border walked by small birds. It measures 7'10" x 9'10", which sits squarely in the 8x10 hand-knotted rugs range that most dining rooms and mid-size living rooms are cut for. The weave is tight and even, the pile is clipped low enough to keep every vine legible, and the ends finish in full cotton fringe as shown against the ruler in the last photograph. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted rug.

Design and Motifs

The layout follows the curvilinear Mashad design almost line for line. A scalloped medallion holds an ivory inner cartouche filled with tiny blossoms, ringed by a black ground carrying paired coiled arabesques and 4 rosette clusters. Above and below it sit matching pendants, each capped with a small stepped finial, and the same shape repeats at reduced scale in the 4 corner spandrels. Across the rest of the field runs a continuous arabesque of thin vines, split palmettes, serrated leaves and single stem flowers, drawn so the scroll turns rather than repeats mechanically. The border scheme is 5 bands deep: a narrow black-ground outer stripe, a burgundy stripe set with 8 petal rosettes, then the wide ivory main band where long-tailed birds alternate with flowering stems, an unusual and very collectible border choice that rewards a close look at the corner detail.

A Closer Look at the Colors

The field is a deep burgundy, closer to wine than to tomato red, and it darkens or lifts as the light crosses the pile so the rug never reads flat. Against it the vinework is worked in warm sand, tan and pale khaki, with olive and sage green picking out the leaves and the occasional bud. The medallion ground is a true black that gives the center its weight, cut against a soft ivory frame and touched with rose, gold and small points of sky blue. That same ivory carries the main border and the corner spandrels, which is what keeps an otherwise dark rug feeling open at the edges. The narrow guard stripes reverse the scheme, putting cream rosettes and green sprigs onto burgundy and near-black grounds. The palette works with mahogany and walnut furniture, cream plaster, and both brass and dark bronze fittings.

Woven in Jaipur, India

Jaipur in Rajasthan is one of the great hand-knotting centers working today, and India is where most of the world's good contemporary hand-knotted weaving is now done. That is said with confidence, not as a hedge. The workshops there took the classical drawing traditions, trained a generation of weavers on them, and pair that skill with excellent long-staple wool that takes dye cleanly and wears hard. On this piece you can see the result in the small things: the corners resolve properly, the medallion is symmetrical, the vine scroll holds its rhythm across a 9'10" length, and the selvedges are tight and straight. As a new Oriental rug in perfect condition, it starts its life with you rather than arriving with someone else's wear already in it.