8'11" x 11'10" Chotan Rug | Grayish Blue with Ivory Medallions | New, Made in India

Chotan rugs, more often spelled Khotan, borrow their drawing from the oasis weaving towns of the old Silk Road, and this 8'11" x 11'10" piece is a careful modern reading of that tradition. It is entirely hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation, clipped to a low pile so the rosettes, fret bands and small pomegranate trees stay sharp rather than blurring into the wool. The palette is quiet: a grayish blue ground with ivory and soft sage doing all the drawing, and only a thin charcoal outline where the design needs definition. The rug is brand new and never used, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted piece. It sits in the standard 9x12 area rug class, wide enough to carry a full seating group or a dining table with every chair on the pile.

Design and Motifs

Three large roundel medallions run down the center of the field, each one filled with pomegranate blossoms, small budded stems and a tiny star at the core, which is the motif that defines the Khotan group. Around them the ground is scattered with 8 petal rosettes, 4 leaf cross flowers, stepped star forms and miniature pomegranate trees on thin stalks, all spaced generously so the field reads calm instead of busy. The four corners carry angular stepped brackets drawn in a heavy fret line, a detail lifted straight from the antique originals. The border system is where the rug shows its discipline: an inner band of linked Greek key meander in sage and charcoal, then a wide ivory main border of scrolling cloud vines and palmettes, then an outer guard of repeating T frets that runs unbroken around all 4 sides. Every turn at the corners resolves properly rather than being cut off, which is the tell of a well-drawn cartoon and a weaver who followed it.

A Grayish Blue Field with Ivory and Sage Accents

The field is a muted grayish blue that shifts with the light, cooler and almost slate in overhead light, softer and more sage green when it catches daylight from a window. The medallion grounds are woven a shade lighter than the field, a pale celadon that makes the roundels float rather than sit heavily. Motifs are drawn in warm ivory and cream, with a second tier of soft sage green filling the larger blossoms, and a dark charcoal used sparingly for outlines and the small bird-like leaf forms. The main border is a clean ivory that lifts the whole rug and keeps the cool field from reading flat. There is a gentle abrash across the ground, the natural tonal drift of hand-dyed wool, visible as faint horizontal banding in the close-up photographs. The overall effect is a neutral, low-contrast rug that sits comfortably with gray, greige, white oak and blackened metal, and warms up under lamplight.

Made in India: Weave and Quality

This rug was hand-knotted in India, which is where most of the world's best contemporary hand-knotted work is now made, and there is no reason to be shy about saying so. The back photograph shows an even, tightly packed knot bed on an ivory cotton foundation, with straight rows, level tension across the width and no bulging or waving at the edges, all signs of a workshop loom rather than a rushed village piece. The wool is spun clean and given a low clip, a choice that suits this design because Khotan drawing depends on crisp outlines, and a deep pile would swallow the fine fret work. The selvages are hand-wrapped and the ends are finished with a short natural cotton fringe. As an Oriental rug in the broader sense of the term, it belongs with the softer, more restrained end of our modern and contemporary hand-knotted rugs, built to be walked on for decades.