8'1" x 10'2" Soltani Oriental Rug | Garden Panel Design | Fine Hand-Spun Wool, Brand New

This is a brand new, never used Soltani garden panel rug, hand-knotted in fine hand-spun wool on a cotton foundation and measuring 8'1" x 10'2". The whole field is built from 72 small woven squares, each one drawn as its own miniature rug with its own ground color, its own border and its own flowering plant, all set into a soft slate blue lattice. It is a busy design handled quietly: the blue grid holds the composition together so the eye reads pattern and color rather than chaos. Among 8 x 10 hand-knotted rugs this is one of the more interesting pieces to live with, because there is always a panel you had not noticed before. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is hand-knotted, along with its size, materials and origin.

Design and Motifs

The Soltani layout is a garden panel design, sometimes called khesti or compartment work, where the field is divided into a grid of squares and each square is given a different planting. Working across the rug you find cypress and willow pairs, flowering shrubs rising from a single vase, tree of life sprays with birds perched in the branches, cross-arm palmette figures and small lobed medallions floating in gold panels. Each square carries its own narrow guard border of dots, diamonds or serrated leaves, and the grid intersections are punctuated with tiny 4 petal rosettes in red and ivory. Rather than a conventional framed border, the open blue ground continues past the panels and is planted with larger single motifs: boteh paisleys, leafy palmette fans and sprigged blossoms scattered at intervals, which gives the rug the airy, open edge that collectors associate with Ziegler style drawing. The result is an all over pattern with a strong sense of order, formal enough for a traditional room and graphic enough for a contemporary one.

A Slate Blue Ground Carrying Every Warm Tone

The field reads as a soft denim or slate blue, gently striated where the hand-spun yarn takes the dye at slightly different strengths, so the ground breathes rather than sitting flat. Against it the panels run through the warm half of the palette: tomato red, deep oxblood and near-black burgundy, honey gold, apricot and camel, clean ivory and cream, with a handful of squares in a muted forest green and a few in dark navy for contrast. The plant drawing inside each square is picked out in ivory, pale sky blue, rose and touches of soft teal, which is what keeps the reds from going heavy. Because no two adjacent squares repeat the same ground color, the rug shifts constantly in daylight and warms considerably under lamplight in the evening. The ivory fringe and the plain blue edge give the whole piece a calm outer frame, and the overall multi-color balance means it will sit comfortably with wood, leather, brass and painted walls alike.

Weaving Quality and Origin

This rug was hand-knotted in Pakistan, where the workshops around Peshawar and Lahore have become the leading source of finely drawn, naturally dyed Oriental rug production today. The wool is highland fleece, hand-spun rather than machine-spun, which is why the pile takes light unevenly in the best sense and why the blue ground shows that faint natural variation. The close-up photograph with the ruler shows the weave clearly: tight, even rows on a cotton foundation, with enough knots per square inch to render a 4 inch panel border and a bird's wing without losing the line. The pile is clipped low and firm, so the drawing stays crisp and the rug will hold up to real traffic. It is brand new and has never been on a floor, and at 8'1" x 10'2" it covers a seating group or a dining table with the chairs pulled out.