8'2" x 11'5" Persian Tabriz Rug | Signed Wool & Silk Floral Medallion | Approx. 500 KPSI, Never Used

A signed workshop Tabriz from the 2000s that has never been laid on a floor. The cartouche woven into the end panel reads "Tarhe Javad, Bafte Azimi", naming the designer and the weaver, which is the mark of a piece made to be judged rather than sold by the square foot. At roughly 500 knots per square inch the drawing stays crisp down to a single leaf tip, and the silk that outlines the medallion and the spandrels catches light at a different angle from the wool. It sits squarely in the practical range of 8x11 Persian rugs, and every piece we ship carries a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Tabriz workshop formula executed at high resolution: a lobed central medallion built from an 8 petal rosette, ringed by a dark cusped halo and finished top and bottom with slender pendant finials. Four corner spandrels mirror the medallion in ivory and soft rose, leaving an open field that is anything but empty. Between them runs a continuous vine scroll carrying palmettes, curled saz leaves, small rosettes and buds, each flower shaded through three or four tones so no two repeats read identically. The main border carries alternating palmettes and cartouche-like blossoms on a dark ground, framed by ivory guard stripes of running vine. The curved line is the point here: circles stay round, stems stay fluid, and the corners resolve cleanly, which only happens when the knot count supports it.

A Pomegranate Red Field Framed in Deep Navy

The field is a deep pomegranate red, warmer and more saturated than a brick tone, with the faint vertical variation in the wool that tells you the dye lots were hand mixed. Around it the main border drops to a navy so dark it reads close to black under low light, and that contrast is what makes the ivory guard stripes and the ivory spandrels jump forward. Inside the medallion the palette opens up: seagreen and teal, pale celadon, soft salmon and rose, a muted olive, touches of sky blue, and cream that carries the silk highlights. Greens do a lot of quiet work here, threading through the leaves across the whole field and keeping the red from going heavy. Against a wood floor the rug reads red and cream from across the room and reveals the blues and greens when you stand over it.

Tabriz Weaving and the Raj Standard

Tabriz sits in the northwest of Persia and has been the country's most organized weaving city for centuries, working from full-scale cartoons under a named designer with the weavers reading the drawing knot by knot. Fineness there is measured in Raj, the number of knots across a gereh of about 2.75 in: 40 Raj is commercial work, 60 Raj lands near 400 knots per square inch and is already collector grade, and 70 Raj approaches 700. At approximately 500 KPSI this rug sits between those two marks, well above anything produced for volume. The cotton foundation is tight and even, the pile is closely clipped so the design stays legible, and silk is used as an accent rather than a shortcut, outlining the medallion and the finest floral detail where it earns its keep.