8'10" x 12' Aubusson Needlepoint Rug | French Floral Medallion | Brick Red & Ivory Flat Woven Wool

This is a handmade needlepoint floor piece worked entirely by hand in wool on a cotton canvas ground, drawn in the French Aubusson manner and finished at 8'10" x 12'. There is no pile to speak of: the surface is flat, matte and tightly stitched, which is why a formal floral design this detailed can hold crisp edges on roses, ribbons and scrollwork. It sits low under furniture and doors, holds a table and chairs without a lip, and works as one of the more elegant options among 9x12 area rugs for a dining room or a formal parlor. Condition is perfect and the piece has never been used on a floor. Every purchase from Rugs.net ships with a certificate of authenticity documenting the size, materials, construction and origin.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the classic French salon formula. At center sits an ivory oval medallion ringed in pale blue and gold rope, filled with mirrored acanthus scrolls and a full bouquet of roses, carnations and buds with dark green foliage. The medallion floats on a shaped field whose outline is not a plain rectangle but a scalloped cartouche, pinched at the waist and clasped at all 4 sides by gilt shell and urn ornaments. Swagged garlands of cabbage roses hang from those clasps and swing across the field in 8 heavy bunches, top and bottom mirrored. The wide ivory border carries the same garland language, with a stitched oval rosette cartouche set into each of the 4 corners and one at the middle of each end. Framing everything is a narrow ribbon and laurel band in gold and powder blue, then a finishing outer stripe. It is a symmetrical, architectural composition that reads best when you can see the whole piece at once, which a room of this scale allows.

Color: Sunset Orange, Brick Red and Ivory

The field is a warm sunset orange that deepens toward brick and antique red where the light falls off, and because the stitch is flat rather than piled, it reads matte and even rather than shiny. Against that warmth the border is a soft ivory to cream, the kind of unbleached tone that keeps the design from looking stark. The florals are worked in salmon, shell pink and dusty rose with white highlights on the outer petals, shaded down into deeper wine red at the rose centers. Foliage runs from sage and olive to a near black forest green, which is what gives the bouquets their depth. Two accent families tie it all together: antique gold and buff for the acanthus scrolls, rope rings and ribbon bands, and a chalky powder blue used for the medallion ring, the field outline, the small bellflowers and the ribbon in the outer band. The overall temperature is warm and slightly faded in feel, so it sits comfortably with mahogany, walnut, cream upholstery and brass.

Origin and Weaving Quality

Aubusson takes its name from the town in central France where tapestry and flat floor coverings have been made since the 17th century, and the style became the standard vocabulary for European salon floors. This piece was made in China, where the best hand needlepoint workshops have carried that vocabulary for decades and produce it at a level of shading and drawing that is genuinely hard to match. The back photograph tells you what you are buying: a fine, evenly stitched wool face on a cotton canvas ground, with the stitch count tight enough to render a rose petal in 4 or 5 tones rather than 2. A flat needlepoint has no pile to crush or shed, so traffic patterns do not develop the way they do on a thick rug, and the surface stays true to its drawing for decades. If you are weighing this against a knotted piece, our guide on the difference between a Persian rug and an Oriental rug is a useful starting point.