8' x 10'2" Persian Tabriz Rug | Grey & Beige Mamluk Medallion | Hand-Knotted Wool, Excellent Condition

This 8' x 10'2" Persian Tabriz is a Mamluk design worked entirely in quiet tones: a grey to beige field, a salmon octagonal medallion, and a deep navy main border. It is hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile, firm underfoot and perfectly flat, and it has never been used. Rooms that already have strong furniture or art tend to fight a red Persian rug; this one does the opposite and settles everything down, which is why pieces in this palette move quickly among the 8x10 Persian and Oriental rugs we import. A certificate of authenticity is included with purchase.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the classical Mamluk formula that Tabriz workshops revived from the Cairene court pieces of the 15th and 16th centuries. A large octagonal medallion sits dead center, filled with an 8 petal rosette surrounded by navy palmettes and ivory arabesque, and ringed by a salmon band of small arcade arches. Four smaller octagons in ivory mark the corners of the inner panel, each holding its own star rosette. Around them the field is packed with the tight lattice that makes this pattern read as a mosaic rather than a garden: stepped diamonds, candle-cup motifs, little cypress sprigs, hooked squares and rows of upright leaf forms, all repeating at small scale across the full length. The main border alternates long cartouche panels of interlocking scrollwork with navy medallion roundels, framed by guard stripes of running vine and a salmon outer stripe. It belongs squarely with the finest geometric Persian rugs, though the drawing here is far more disciplined than village geometry.

A Grey, Beige and Salmon Palette

The ground is a soft grey that warms toward beige and light taupe as it travels down the field, with the end panels reading almost sand. Against it the weaver placed three accents and nothing more: a muted salmon terracotta that carries the medallion, the inner frame line and the outer guard stripe; a deep inky navy that outlines every motif and fills the main border; and a clean ivory that picks out the corner octagons, the rosette hearts and the small scrolling vine. Because the navy is used as drawing rather than as a field color, the rug stays light overall and never turns heavy. Up close you can see the wool take light differently across the grey, giving a gentle natural variation rather than a flat printed tone. Among grey Persian rugs this is the version that still looks handmade, because the color sits in the fleece instead of on top of it. Ivory cotton fringe finishes both ends.

Tabriz Weaving and the Quality of the Knot

Tabriz sits in northwest Persia and has been the country's most organized weaving city for centuries, the place where cartoon drawn designs, trained master weavers and a strict Raj counting system replaced improvised village work. That discipline is what a Mamluk pattern demands: thousands of small repeating units have to line up across 10'2" of length without drifting, and in this piece they do, corner to corner. The back photograph shows the reason, with tight even rows of wool knots on a cotton foundation, a clean low pile and no gaps or slubs in the weave. Tabriz wool is spun hard, which is why these rugs hold a crisp outline for generations and take traffic without crushing. Handled properly, an 8' x 10'2" Tabriz of this construction is a rug you pass on rather than replace.