8'1" x 8'2" Round Agra Rug | Ivory All-Over Floral Field | Made in India

A true circle at 8'1" x 8'2", this hand-knotted Agra rug reads as a single ivory disc of flowering vine held inside a wide salmon border. The pile is wool on a cotton foundation, clipped at a medium height that keeps the drawing crisp, and the weave is dense enough that the pattern stays legible right up to the curved edge, where the selvage is wrapped by hand and the warp ends finish in a short ivory fringe. The pile is full and even across the whole diameter with no low spots or repair, and the ivory has settled into a warm, slightly buttery tone rather than a bright white. Genuine 8 foot round hand-knotted rugs in this size are far harder to find than rectangles, since a weaver has to plot a curve on a straight loom and stagger every row to hold the circle. Every rug ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. The field is a true all-over floral design, built from large serrated palmettes and open lotus rosettes linked by thin scrolling vines that fork into small buds, tulip heads and curling sickle leaves. Because the format is round, the drawing mirrors outward from the center in quarters, so the eye keeps finding the same palmette repeated at 4 points of the circle, a layout that lets the rug work from any chair around a table. The main border carries alternating palmettes and eight petal rosettes joined by a continuous meander, and it is framed on both sides by narrow guard stripes of small flower heads on a dark ground, with a further outer stripe of rosettes on the salmon tone. Fine detail work shows in the field: tiny cruciform florets and pinwheel roundels fill the spaces between the larger blooms, so almost no bare ground is left anywhere in the circle.

A Warm Ivory Field With Salmon and Sage

The field is ivory with a soft cream to light gold cast, the kind of undyed-looking ground that picks up the color of the room rather than fighting it. Against it the palmettes are worked in charcoal navy and near black, outlined so sharply that they read almost like ink drawing, while the leaves and vine work run through sage green, celadon and a muted olive. Rust, terracotta and chocolate brown appear in the smaller buds and in the hearts of the rosettes, adding warmth without any strong red. The main border shifts the whole palette to a dusty salmon and old rose ground, which is what gives the rug its antique-washed look from across a room, and the guard stripes drop back to deep brown and dark blue to hold the edge. Under natural light, seen in the floor photographs, the ivory warms further and the salmon leans toward clay, so the rug sits comfortably with oak flooring, walnut furniture and cream or stone-colored walls.

Agra Weaving in India

Agra, in northern India, gave its name to a whole family of court-style floral weaving that goes back to the Mughal workshops, and the vocabulary on this rug, the palmette and vine field with its wide framed border, comes straight out of that tradition. India today is where most of the world's good contemporary hand-knotted work is produced, and this piece shows why: consistent knotting across the full diameter, clean color separation between the dark palmettes and the pale ground, and a curved edge finished without the lumping that gives away a poorly shaped round. The wool is springy and takes a good sheen where the light hits it, and the cotton foundation keeps the circle flat and true rather than dishing at the rim. If you are weighing this against Persian weaving, the article on what actually separates a Persian rug from an Oriental rug is worth reading before you buy.