8'10" x 18' Indian Oriental Rug | Burgundy & Green Antique All Over Design | Never Used

A rug 8'10" x 18' is not a stock size, it is a room solution. This one was hand-knotted in India in a single piece, 18 feet of wool pile on a cotton foundation, drawn in the old all over manner with no medallion so the eye travels the full length of the field instead of stopping in the middle. The pile is thick and evenly clipped, the sides are firm, and the ivory cotton fringe is still crisp because the rug has never been on a floor. Long, narrow proportions like this suit a gallery, a library, a banquet-length dining table or a long open-plan living space, and they are exactly why buyers end up searching the oversize hand-knotted rugs instead of the standard sizes. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is genuinely hand-knotted.

Design and Motifs

The field carries a continuous all over design of thin vine scroll that repeats down the length in mirrored pairs. Hung on that vine are big serrated acanthus leaves, split palmettes, small checkerboard rosettes and tall cypress-shaped blossoms that sit on straight stems, the tallest of them anchoring the center line at regular intervals. Nothing is crowded: the weaver left enough open ground between motifs for each leaf to read on its own, which is what keeps a field this large from turning into noise. The main border reverses the scheme, setting broad winged palmettes and pink leaf sprays on a light ground, separated by ivory and black outlined guard stripes, with the corners properly resolved rather than cut off mid-motif. It is the classic antique Agra style of drawing, formal and architectural, and it holds up whether you see it from the doorway or from a chair three feet away.

A Burgundy Field Against Olive Green

The field is a deep wine burgundy, closer to claret than to tomato red, with a faint natural variation across the width that reads as depth rather than as a flaw. Against it the border runs a soft olive to sage green, the single most decisive choice in the rug, because green is what cools a red field down and keeps it from dominating a room. The drawing between them is worked in salmon pink, straw gold, ivory and a very dark navy that photographs as black, and those darks do the outlining, giving every leaf and palmette a clean edge. Pale celadon leaves lighten the field, while small crimson rosettes inside the green border stitch the two halves of the palette back together. The overall effect is warm and traditional but noticeably softer than a high-chroma red and ivory rug, which makes it easier to live with in a room that already has wood, leather or antique furniture.

Hand-Knotted in India

India is where most of the world's good contemporary hand-knotted work is now made, and we say that with confidence: the weaving traditions there are centuries old, the wool is strong and takes dye beautifully, and the best Indian workshops still tie every knot by hand on a vertical loom. The back of this piece, shown in the fold photographs, has straight even knot rows and clear color definition through to the foundation, which is the honest test of a hand-knotted rug and something no machine or tufted piece can fake. Weaving an 18 foot length in one piece means months on the loom and a loom wide enough to hold nearly 9 feet of warp, so pieces at this scale are made to order rather than stocked in quantity. If you are weighing this against a piece from Persia, our guide on what actually separates a Persian rug from a broader Oriental rug lays out the differences in weave, wool and drawing.