7'2" x 8' Sino Oriental Rug | Red All-Over Floral Field | Navy Multi-Border | Excellent Condition

This is a hand-knotted Sino piece, woven in China in the classical workshop manner, and it is one of the more convincing examples of that tradition we have handled. The proportions are unusual and useful: at 7'2" x 8' it sits almost square, which suits a seating group set around a center table far better than a long rectangle does. The wool pile is dense and glossy, the drawing is disciplined from corner to corner, and the piece has never been used, with no wear, no repair and no restoration. Every rug we sell, including this Oriental rug, ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is genuinely hand-knotted, along with its full specifications.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. Instead the field carries a balanced all-over composition built on a lattice of thin brown and olive vine stems that link one flower head to the next across the whole surface. Large fan-shaped palmettes in gold and camel alternate with ivory and pale blue hexagonal cartouches, each one filled with a small 8 petal rosette. Down the vertical axis the weaver placed a sequence of sky blue cloud-band palmettes, the largest sitting dead center with a single red rosette at its heart, and these give the eye a spine to follow even without a medallion. Scattered between them are white and cream star blossoms, small red and blue cartouche fillers and curled serrated leaves. The main navy border runs a continuous vine of red and salmon lotus palmettes, flanked on both sides by light blue guard stripes carrying small floral meanders, and the outer ivory reciprocal band finishes the whole thing cleanly at all 4 corners.

A Deep Red Field Framed in Navy and Sky Blue

The field is a true saturated red, warm rather than orange, and the lustre of the wool lets it read lighter where the light catches the pile and deeper where it does not, which is exactly what you want from a red rug in a room with lamps. Against it the palette is tightly controlled: golden wheat and camel for the palmettes, a bright sky blue for the cloud bands and cartouche centers, and a chalky ivory for the star blossoms and the fine outlining. The main border reverses the scheme entirely, running a deep midnight navy ground that anchors the red and keeps the rug from floating, with brick red, salmon and gold flower heads drawn across it. The light blue guard borders act as the transition between the two, and the ivory fringe at both ends closes the piece off. Red, navy and gold is a classic pairing for a reason: it works with dark hardwood, with cream upholstery, and with wood furniture of almost any period.

Sino Weaving and the Quality of the Knotting

Sino rugs are Chinese workshop weavings that follow classical Oriental drawing rather than traditional Chinese motifs, and the best of them were made by weavers trained to reproduce fine floral cartoons at a high knot count. This one shows that training. The vine lines stay the same thickness as they curve, the cartouche outlines are single-knot crisp, and the two halves of the field mirror each other properly, which is the hardest thing to hold over a nearly square format. The back photographs show tight, even rows on a cotton foundation with no slack and no bulge along the selvedge, and the rolled-edge shot shows a full, heavy wool pile that has not been shaved down to fake fineness. It sits flat, it lies square, and it belongs with the better hand-knotted Oriental rugs in this size class rather than with decorative production work.