7'2" x 10'3" Persian Tabriz Rug | Wool | Red and Ivory

A wool rug of 7'2" x 10'3", hand-knotted in Persia in the Tabriz manner, with a 3/8" pile. At a glance it is a deep red field carrying a pale blue and ivory medallion, framed by a wide ivory border. It is a rectangular piece in the 8x10 to 10x14 range, listed in excellent condition, and the photographs show full pile with no visible wear or repair.

Design

The field is built around a single lobed medallion with a stepped pale blue outline, an ivory inner cartouche and a dark green eight-pointed rosette at the centre. Slender pendants reach off the top and bottom of the medallion into the open red ground. Around it the field is filled with flowering stems, palmettes, serrated leaves and small weeping-willow and cypress sprays, drawn loosely enough that the red reads as open space rather than a packed ground. Each corner carries a large blue spandrel with its own leaf and blossom fill, and these are what give the layout its strong diagonal pull. The main border runs a continuous ivory band of palmettes and curling vines, with two narrow dark guard stripes carrying a small running rosette meander on either side.

Colour

The ground is a cool crimson that turns toward raspberry in the close-up photographs, more cherry than brick, and it dominates the rug from across a room. Against it the medallion is worked in a chalky sky blue with an ivory core, and the corner spandrels in a deeper denim blue that anchors the four edges. The wide border is ivory, warm rather than white, and the contrast with the red field is the loudest thing in the design. Secondary notes are olive and sage green in the leaves, a muted teal in the small rosettes, soft pink and tan in the blossoms, and near-black outlines that keep the drawing crisp.

Making

The rug is hand-knotted in wool on a foundation, with a pile clipped to 3/8" and plain ivory fringes left at both ends. The back, shown here with a rule laid across it, is evenly knotted and the drawing passes through cleanly, which is what allows the fine vine work of the border and the small detail inside the medallion. It was woven in Persia to the Tabriz design the city is known for, one of many hand-knotted rugs that use the curvilinear medallion and corner layout, and the condition is given as excellent.