8'11" x 11'7" Ziegler Chobi Rug | All Over Palmette and Vine Design | New, Never Used Natural Wool

This is a new, never used Ziegler Chobi rug, hand-knotted in natural wool on a cotton foundation and measuring 8'11" x 11'7". It belongs to the modern Ziegler Chobi group, a revival of the big 19th century commercial workshop weavings, and it is drawn for exactly the reason those pieces sold: a quiet, open ground, large motifs with air around them, and a palette that reads soft from across the room. The pile is clipped low enough that the drawing stays crisp, as the rolled close-up photographs show, and the wool has that faint natural sheen you only get from good hand-spun yarn. As a true Oriental rug it ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming the hand-knotted construction, the wool pile and the country of weaving. At just under 9 by 12 it sits in the most useful large format there is, and we keep a full selection of 9x12 Oriental rugs for buyers comparing this one against alternatives.

Design and Motifs

The field is an all over design built around a vertical column of large blossoms and palmettes linked by thin, almost dry-brushed vines. At the center sits a single round rosette with a small 8 petal ivory flower in its heart, framed by a pair of long serrated leaves that sweep out to either side. Above and below it the drawing repeats in mirrored pairs: broad fan-shaped palmettes, split leaf forms, and wide multi-lobed blossoms that open like cabbage roses, each one outlined in a darker line so the shape holds against the pale ground. Small rosettes and buds fill the gaps, and the corner areas carry the same vocabulary turned on the diagonal. The surround is a triple border. The wide main band runs a march of large palmettes and leaf sprays, flanked by two narrow guard stripes patterned with tiny squares, hooks and reciprocal leaf tips. Nothing is crowded, which is the whole point of this design family, and it is why the pattern still reads clearly once furniture covers part of the field.

A Beige and Gold Palette With Rust, Olive and Mint

The ground is a warm beige that shifts toward light wheat gold where the light catches the pile, and because the yarn is hand-spun the ground is never flat: you can see fine tonal striation running across the width in the detail shots, which is a desirable trait, not a flaw. Against it the motifs are worked in burnt rust and brick red, deep antique gold, a dusty olive green and a muted mauve brown, with ivory used for the smallest highlights inside the blossoms. The surprise is the mint green. It appears in the long serrated leaves beside the center rosette and in dozens of small leaf tips through the field and border, and that cool note is what keeps a warm, earthy palette from turning heavy. The main border deepens to a toffee gold, the guard stripes pick up a grey-mauve, and the fringe and selvage stay natural ivory. If you are shopping a neutral floor, this piece lives comfortably among beige and ivory Oriental rugs while bringing considerably more color than a plain tonal weave.

Ziegler Chobi Weaving and Quality

Ziegler Chobi rugs are woven in the workshops of northern Pakistan, around Lahore and Peshawar, by weavers working from full-scale paper cartoons in the tradition of the original Ziegler and Company commissions. Chobi refers to the soft, low-contrast color effect those workshops are known for. The quality markers here are the ones that matter in this group: hand-spun wool rather than machine yarn, so the pile takes dye unevenly and ages well; a firm, even cotton foundation, visible in the folded corner photograph as a tight, regular grid of knots; straight sides with a hand-wrapped selvage; and knotted fringe finished by hand at both ends. The back is uniform with no bulges or puckering, which tells you the tension was held steady across nearly 12 feet of weaving. The rug has never been laid, so the pile is at full height and the corners are square.