8'2" x 9'11" Soltani Ziegler Rug | Multi Neutral Panel Medallions | Fine Ghazni Wool, Brand New

This is a brand new hand-knotted Soltani rug woven in fine Ghazni wool, and it does the difficult thing well: it reads as a calm neutral from across the room and as a busy, colorful tribal weaving up close. The field is a soft mushroom taupe that shifts with the light, and across it sit 18 small panel medallions, each one drawn as its own miniature prayer niche or compartment. It measures 8'2" x 9'11", which sits squarely in the 8x10 rug size range that most living rooms and dining rooms are furnished around. The wool has the faint natural striation weavers call abrash, the fringes are original and even, and the rug has never been on a floor. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming the hand-knotted construction, the wool quality and the Pakistani origin.

Design and Motifs

The layout is a khesti or compartment plan: 6 rows of 3 panels, each panel a self-contained little weaving with its own stepped outline, its own ground color and its own filler. Some panels carry an angular niche with a hooked arch and a row of comb-like ends, others hold a squared medallion filled with 8 arrow heads and small crosses, and a few center on a single cypress or tree of life sprouting from a base. Between and around the panels the open taupe ground is scattered with 4 armed crosses, star rosettes and tiny blossoms, so no area of the field is dead. Flanking the field on both sides are 2 narrow vertical guard panels drawn with a dark trailing vine, an unusual touch that gives the rug a framed, almost architectural spine. The main border is a procession of octagonal and star rosettes, each a different color, and it is bracketed by reciprocal barber-pole guard stripes and a fine hooked minor border. If you like geometric rugs with real drawing inside every motif rather than a repeated stamp, this is that kind of weaving.

A Multi Neutral Palette Built on Mushroom Taupe

The ground color is the reason this rug works in a modern room. It is a warm mushroom taupe, somewhere between camel, greige and pale walnut, and because the yarn is hand spun it striates gently from row to row instead of sitting flat. Against that neutral base the panels light up in rust and burnt terracotta, deep brick red, ivory and cream, olive and grass green, mustard gold, apricot, indigo navy and a soft blue grey that appears in several medallion centers. The close-up photograph shows the effect clearly: a rust panel with a blue grey inner cartouche, a near-black navy core, and ivory and green blossoms picked out around the edge. The border swaps between ivory, red, green, gold and blue rosettes on an olive to sage ground, so the frame is multi colored without ever shouting. Set against oak, walnut, cognac leather or off-white upholstery the overall reading stays neutral, while every accent color in the room finds a match somewhere in the field.

Woven in Pakistan from Fine Ghazni Wool

Pakistan's weaving centers around Lahore and Peshawar produce some of the most consistently good hand-knotted work being made anywhere today, and the Soltani and Ziegler designs are their strongest suit. This piece uses Ghazni wool, the long-staple highland fleece prized for its lanolin content and its luster, hand spun rather than machine spun, which is what produces the subtle tonal movement in the field. The knotting is tight and regular, the outlines of every small medallion stay crisp, and the back shown with the ruler confirms an even, well-beaten weave with straight selvages and no pull at the corners. As an Oriental rug this is a working floor piece first: dense pile, natural dyes that will mellow rather than fade, and a cotton foundation that will hold its shape through decades of traffic.