8'6" x 11'8" Wool and Silk Oriental Rug | Tabriz Design | Ivory & Black, Never Used

This hand-knotted piece measures 8'6" x 11'8" and pairs a luminous ivory field with a deep black floral border, worked in wool with silk highlights over a cotton foundation. It has never been on a floor: the pile is full, the ends and selvages are untouched, and the original weaver's tag is still attached, as you can see in the final photograph. At 102 by 140 inches it falls into the useful 9x12 bracket that most formal seating groups and 8 seat dining tables are planned around, with enough field showing on all 4 sides to read as a finished floor rather than wall-to-wall coverage. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming the hand-knotted construction, the wool and silk pile and the measurements above.

Design and Motifs

The layout follows the classic Tabriz formula: a central medallion, matching pendants above and below, weighted corner spandrels, and a continuous scrolling vine filling everything in between. The medallion itself is a black 8 point star with lobed edges, and its core is an 8 petal rosette drawn in ivory, camel and rose, ringed by a fine hair-thin outline that keeps the shape crisp at distance. Two smaller black cartouche pendants anchor the vertical axis. Across the field, curling arabesque tendrils carry palmettes, serrated acanthus leaves and small 5 petal blossoms, with the drawing mirrored across both the long and short axes so the pattern resolves cleanly at every edge. The border system runs 4 bands deep: a narrow ivory outer stripe, a camel and sage guard band of alternating flowerheads, the wide black main border with its rhythm of large rosettes and palmettes, and an inner guard that repeats the field vine in miniature. The curvilinear drawing is what carries this design, and the close-up shots show the vine lines holding a smooth continuous curve rather than the stepped outlines you see on coarser weaves.

The Ivory and Black Color Story

The ground is a warm ivory that leans toward cream and light champagne rather than a cold white, and because silk is blended into the highlights the field shifts in tone as you walk around it, brighter looking down the pile and softer looking into it. Against that, the border reads black in the flat overhead photograph and shows its true depth in the close-ups, where it resolves as a near-black midnight blue with real pigment in it. The accent palette is deliberately soft: salmon and dusty rose blossoms, antique pink, sage and olive green leafwork, a few muted slate blue petals, pale gold flowerheads, and a camel to light brown tone that carries the guard bands and the corner spandrels. Small points of deep red outline individual flowers and give the pattern its definition. The corner spandrels carry a faint celadon green wash that separates them from the field without breaking the ivory continuity. Practically, this is an easy rug to build a room on: ivory and black works with walnut and dark woods, warm brass, and both cream and navy upholstery, and the rose and green accents give you two low-risk pillow colors to pull from.

Origin and Weaving Quality

This rug was made in China, where workshops have spent decades weaving the classical medallion designs to a very high standard, and it is honestly described as an Oriental rug in the Tabriz idiom rather than a village piece. The construction tells the story: a tightly spun cotton foundation, a hand-knotted wool pile with silk worked into the flowerheads and medallion core for sheen, evenly clipped so the surface sits level from border to border, and ends and sides finished by hand. The folded corner photograph shows a supple handle with no stiffness, which means the rug will lie flat quickly and turn easily for rotation. The fineness is visible where it matters most, in the small blossoms and the hair-thin outlines, since that level of detail is only possible at a high knot count. Combined with never used condition and full pile height, this is a large formal rug with its entire service life still ahead of it.