7'11" x 9'10" Chinese Peking Art Deco Rug | Oval Rose Medallion & Archaic Vases | Hand-Knotted Wool

This 7'11" x 9'10" rug is hand-knotted in China in the Peking Art Deco manner, and it reads as calm and architectural rather than busy. The field is a warm tan camel, left deliberately open, with a soft rose oval medallion floating at the center and 14 small archaic bronze vessels set in quiet rows around it. The drawing is restrained, the palette is low contrast, and the wool pile has a glossy sheen that shifts from gold to honey as you walk around it, which is exactly why this style of Chinese Oriental rug works so well under modern furniture. At a true 8x10 Oriental rug footprint it covers a full seating group, as the room photo shows. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted and describing the size, materials and origin.

Design and Motifs

The layout is pure Deco geometry wrapped around a classical center. The open camel ground carries a barely raised fretwork lattice, visible in the close-ups as a tone on tone relief rather than a drawn pattern, and that texture is what keeps the empty space interesting. At the heart sits an oval medallion ringed by a golden scrolling cartouche band, filled with 8 curling lotus palmettes and a cream rosette with 6 small blossoms at its core. Around the medallion the weaver placed a procession of archaic bronze shapes: tall gu beakers, lidded vases with crowned finials, footed offering bowls and three-legged vessels, each outlined in cream with touches of green and lilac. The field is framed by an angular Greek key band in burgundy and ivory with stepped corner brackets, then a slim sage green meander guard, then the wide blush border where ivory and gold lotus flowers trail along a continuous vine between small fan shaped dividers. A plain rust brown outer band finishes the rug with no fringe interruption to the design, and the 4 corners resolve cleanly, a sign the cartoon was drawn properly rather than improvised at the edges.

A Closer Look at the Color

Tan is the governing color, but it is not flat tan. The field moves between camel, wheat and a deeper amber where the light catches the pile, with gentle horizontal variation across the width that gives the open ground a hand-dyed depth. The medallion is a muted rose mauve, dusty rather than pink, and its internal scrollwork is drawn in a paler blush that sits only a shade away from the ground, so the ornament whispers instead of shouting. The center rosette lifts the whole rug with cream and butter gold, carrying a few small rose florets. Borders shift to a soft peach and blush beige, patterned in ivory and antique gold with pale rose outlining, while the key fret band supplies the one strong note in burgundy. Sage green appears in measured doses, in the meander guard and in the banding on the woven vessels, cooling the warm tones. Lilac grey shadows on the vases and a rust brown outer edge complete the range. Overall it is a warm neutral rug: tan, cream, rust and rose, friendly to oak and walnut floors, ivory upholstery and brass.

Peking Weaving and the Chinese Deco Tradition

Made in China, this rug belongs to the Peking school that reinvented itself in the 1920s and 1930s, when weavers in and around the capital began building rugs for Western rooms: open fields, few motifs, antique bronze and lotus imagery borrowed from Chinese decorative art, and a palette of tans, roses and golds instead of the old imperial blue and ivory. That restraint is harder to weave than a crowded field, because nothing hides an uneven line. The weave here is a sturdy wool pile on a cotton foundation, cut with a generous plush height that you can see where the rug rolls back in the detail shots, and the motif edges are lightly clipped below the surface so the vessels and scrolls stand in low relief, a carving touch specific to Chinese workshops. The wool takes a soft sheen, the handle is heavy and substantial for a rug of this size, and the back is even and square. Condition is excellent throughout, with full pile, straight sides and firmly bound selvages.