8'2" x 11'8" Persian Tabriz Rug | 70 Raj Wool & Silk on Silk Foundation | Signed, Never Used

This is workshop weaving at the top of the Tabriz scale: 70 Raj, wool and silk pile knotted onto a silk foundation, and a weaver confident enough to sign the piece in a cartouche at one end. The rug has never been on a floor. The pile still stands upright, the silk highlights still flash when you walk past them, and the ends and sides are exactly as they left the loom. At 8'2" x 11'8" it is a full formal room size, heavy in the hand for its scale because the silk warps pack the knots so tightly. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials, knot count and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an 8 point star medallion, a deep blue core filled with small rosettes and stepped out through rings of ivory, taupe and sage into a lobed floral crown at top and bottom. Around it the field is covered in a fine curvilinear vine, no repeat large enough to read as a grid, with tiny palmettes, budding carnations and split leaves turning on hairline stems. The 4 corner spandrels are drawn in soft grey green and carry heavier palmettes and cloud bands that anchor the composition. The main border is ivory, wide, and filled with alternating rosettes and turned leaves on a continuous vine, flanked by narrow guard stripes. What separates this from ordinary Tabriz work is the drawing: the curves stay true through their whole arc, and outlines are a single knot wide, which is only possible at this level of fineness.

A Peach Pink Field With Blue, Ivory and Green

The field is a warm peach pink, closer to coral in daylight and softer under lamps, and it is unusual to see it held this evenly across a rug of this size. Against it the vinework is drawn in powder blue, lavender grey, celadon and cream, with small hits of tomato red inside the flower heads that keep the palette from going pale. The medallion center is the one piece of saturated color, a true cobalt blue that pulls the eye straight to the middle of the room. Spandrels and the inner frame shade through sage and dove grey, and the wide outer border is ivory with blue, rose and green florals. The silk is used as highlight rather than ground, so the leaves and stems shine while the wool field stays matte, and the whole rug changes character depending on where the light falls.

Tabriz Weaving and Why 70 Raj Matters

Tabriz in northwest Persia measures fineness in Raj, the number of knots across one gereh of about 2.75 inches. 40 Raj is commercial goods, 50 Raj is fine, 60 Raj is collector grade, and 70 Raj is the ceiling of what the best ateliers will even attempt, because the silk warps have to be strung at a density that leaves almost no margin for error. A weaver working at this count covers only a few inches of height in a day, which is why a rug this size represents years on the loom for a small team. The signed cartouche is the workshop putting its name on the result. Among large Persian rugs this level of fineness at this scale is genuinely scarce, and an unused example in perfect condition is scarcer still.