8'10" x 11'11" Gray Chotan Chobi Rug | Ivory Khotan Roundel Medallions | Brand New, Never Used

This 8'10" x 11'11" Chotan Chobi rug is a brand new hand-knotted Oriental rug made in Pakistan, drawn after the old roundel rugs of Khotan on the Silk Road. Three pale medallions run down a charcoal gray field, the pile is hand-spun wool clipped low at 1/4", and the foundation is cotton, so the drawing stays crisp and the rug lies flat without any break-in period. It has never been used, the ends and sides are intact, and the colors sit in a quiet neutral range that reads as texture from across a room rather than as pattern. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted and stating the origin, materials and exact measurements.

Design and Motifs

The field carries 3 large roundels placed down the center line, each one a pale disc filled with an 8 point star core, curling vine arms and a ring of small pomegranate buds and bird-like leaf forms. Around them the ground is sprinkled with ivory cross rosettes, 4 petal flowers, small checkered discs on short stems and paired bud sprays, an all over scatter that keeps the open gray ground alive without crowding it. All 4 corners are closed by stepped fretwork brackets that step inward like a maze, a device lifted straight from antique Khotan weaving. Three border bands frame the whole thing: an inner meander key fret in gray and ivory, a wide ivory main border of shield shaped cartouches with curling tendrils and tiny star rosettes, and an outer band of repeating T motifs on gray, finished with an ivory fringe. The symmetry is deliberate but hand drawn, so the fret lines wander slightly where the weavers worked from memory rather than a strict grid.

A Quiet Palette of Charcoal, Silver and Ivory

The ground is a mid to deep charcoal gray with a faint brown undertone, and it shifts gently from panel to panel the way hand-spun wool always does, lighter toward one end and cooler in the corners. Against it the 3 roundels read in silver gray and sand beige, soft enough that they melt into the field in low light and separate clearly under a lamp. The small scattered motifs are the brightest note, a clean ivory with cream and oatmeal shading, while the drawing inside the medallions is picked out in mushroom, taupe and olive gray. The main border reverses the scheme, ivory ground with gray and warm brown outlines, so the frame glows and pushes the dark field forward. For rooms built on gray and charcoal rugs, this one brings warmth rather than coldness, because the grays are wool grays with brown in them and not a flat dyed slate.

Chobi Weaving in Pakistan and the Khotan Source

Chobi weaving grew up around Peshawar and Lahore, where workshops built their reputation on hand-spun wool and the soft natural dye palette that gives the group its name. The Chotan design they draw from is older still, from the oasis town of Khotan in East Turkestan, where Chinese roundels met Central Asian fret borders along the Silk Road. This piece shows the strengths of that production clearly: a tight even knot count across the full 11'11" length, no pull or waist in the sides, a low clipped pile that holds fine outlines, and a heavy cotton warp that gives the rug body underfoot. The reverse seen in the fold photo is clean and regular, with the pattern legible knot by knot. At this scale it sits in the most used proportion in American homes, and buyers comparing 9x12 rugs will find this one unusually quiet in color for a hand-knotted piece of its size.