8'7" x 11'10" Chinese Isfahan Rug | Wool | Berry Red and Ivory

A hand-knotted rug from China, 8'7" x 11'10", worked in the Isfahan manner with a dome design: a star medallion at the centre and the whole field falling away from it in vaults, as though you were standing under a ceiling and looking up. The pile is wool at 3/8", the ground berry red with black and ivory carrying the drawing, and the condition is new.

The design

The centre is a twelve-point star medallion in ivory and pale rose, filled with fine scrolling vine and small palmettes, ringed by a band of black lozenges and then by a second, wider star of pink and ivory cartouches. From that ring the field opens into tall vaulted panels, each drawn as an arch with a pointed crown, alternating berry red and black grounds and filled with boteh, split-palmette and leaf scroll. Narrow guard stripes of ivory beading trace every arch and give the whole field its ribbed, architectural look. The main border is a panelled one, black and ivory in turn, each panel holding a shield cartouche or a full rosette, with a running ivory vine outside it and a plain red selvedge beyond that. The corners of the border resolve cleanly, and the drawing repeats across the two long sides without drift.

The colour

The field reads as a deep berry red, closer to cooked plum than to brick, and it sits directly against black in the alternating vaults so the pattern separates at a distance rather than blurring. Ivory does the outlining: the beaded ribs, the border panels, the fringes of the medallion. Inside the cartouches and the vault fillings there is sage green and a soft salmon pink, used in small quantities and mostly as flower heads, which keeps the red from going heavy. The overall impression in the room photographs is warm and dark with a lit centre.

The making

Hand-knotted in China with a 3/8" wool pile on a cotton foundation, finished with plain woven ends and knotted ivory fringe, as the corner and fringe photographs show. The detail in the star medallion and the border cartouches needs a tight weave to hold, and the drawing stays sharp at the smallest flower heads. It is a rectangular piece in the large range, new and unworn, and one of many hand-knotted rugs we carry in this size.