7' x 9'7" Antique Chinese Peking Rug | Art Deco Blue Field with Beige Medallion | 1900s Wool

Hand-knotted in China in the 1900s, this 7' x 9'7" Peking rug comes out of the Art Deco export years, when Chinese workshops were drawing for Western rooms and leaving far more open ground than a traditional all over pattern allows. The field is a deep teal blue, almost bare, with small beige emblems scattered across it and a single round medallion anchoring the center. Natural wool pile on a cotton foundation gives it real weight and a soft, slightly glossy surface, and at this scale it behaves like most 7x10 area rugs, sitting comfortably under a seating group, a four seat dining table, or a bed placed crosswise. It ships with a certificate of authenticity recording the age, origin and construction listed above.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is classic Peking: an open field sprinkled with the small emblems collectors call the hundred antiques, here rendered as flowering vases, handled urns, footed jardinieres, a brush pot holding brushes, blossom sprays and little curling scrolls that read as insects or cloud wisps. Each one floats on its own, spaced with real confidence, so the eye moves across the rug instead of getting held by a repeat. The center carries a round medallion roughly 4 feet across, built from scrolling navy vines, 8 large beige peony blossoms and a squared fret knot at the very middle. All 4 corners answer it with stepped Greek key fret brackets and large leafy blossoms that grow inward from the border, a device that gives the empty ground its shape. The main border runs on a camel ground with a continuous navy and teal scrolling leaf vine, framed by narrow guard stripes, and the ivory fringe finishes both ends.

The Teal Blue and Beige Palette

Color is the reason to own this one. The field is a saturated teal blue, a peacock tone that sits between blue and green depending on the light, and it moves gently from panel to panel with the soft horizontal abrash that hand-dyed wool develops over a century. Against it, the motifs are worked in a warm sandy beige that has mellowed toward camel and old gold, with outlines and accents in a very dark indigo navy that reads nearly black in the detail shots. The border reverses the balance, putting the camel ground on the outside so the blue field looks deeper by contrast, and the teal leaves in that border tie the frame back to the center. The whole scheme is only 3 tones doing the work, which is what makes it read as calm in a room rather than busy, and it drops easily into interiors built around blues, greens, brass, walnut and cream.

Peking Weaving and the Art Deco Export Era

Peking rugs were woven in and around Beijing, largely for export, and their quality sits in the wool and the handle rather than in extreme fineness. The knotting here is moderate and very even, as the folded back shows, with clean straight rows on a cotton foundation and thick, lustrous, long staple wool that has taken dye beautifully and still has body underfoot. That heavy pile is exactly why these rugs survive: a low area in the field after more than 100 years of use is normal wear, not structural trouble. Buyers comparing this piece with other antique Oriental rugs will recognize the period markers in the fret work, the open ground and the muted palette, and our guide on how to date an Oriental rug walks through the same signs we used to place this one in the 1900s.