8' x 10' Chinese Aubusson Flat Weave Rug | French Floral Medallion | Light Green & Ivory

This is a hand-woven Aubusson in the French 18th century manner, made in China in the 2000's and still in perfect, unused condition. There is no pile at all: the wool is woven flat in the tapestry technique, so the surface sits close to the floor, the drawing reads like a painting rather than a sculpted carpet face, and the whole piece is light enough for one person to move. At 8' x 10' it is a true room-size format that fits the standard 8x10 area rug footprint most American living rooms are built around, and because there is no plush to crush it also works beautifully as a dining room rug where chairs need to slide. Every piece we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The composition is the classic Aubusson salon layout. A large shaped panel fills the center, outlined by an egg and dart band of ovals and closed at top and bottom by a small circular cartouche holding a single open rose. Inside that panel the ivory ground is scattered with individually drawn rose sprays, some fully blown, some in bud, each with its own stem and two or three sage leaves, and a garland of leafy vine curves along the inner edge of the frame. The 4 corners of the surrounding green field carry cornucopia horns spilling bouquets of pink roses, tied with loose ribbon streamers that knot at the center of each side, while acanthus scrollwork unwinds behind them. Two guard bands of ivory hold a continuous leaf and bud vine, and the outermost border is drawn as a twisted rope and a row of upright leaf tips, the architectural molding vocabulary these designs borrowed from French plasterwork.

A Study in Light Green, Ivory and Rose

The palette is deliberately quiet. The field surrounding the medallion panel is a soft celadon, closer to mint than to grass, and it carries through to the flat woven outer edge so the rug reads green from across a room. Against it the center panel is a warm ivory with a faint cream cast, giving the roses somewhere bright to sit. Those roses run from pale blush at the outer petals to a deeper rose and a single touch of raspberry at the heart, and the occasional five petal blossom is drawn in a dustier pink. Foliage is worked in two greens, a gray sage and a warmer olive, with stems and scrolls in tan, camel and light taupe that tie the whole scheme to the beige tones of the borders. The ribbons add a pale salmon accent. Nothing shouts, which is why this coloring works so easily with painted furniture, oak floors, cream upholstery and gilt frames.

Aubusson Weaving and Where This Rug Was Made

Aubusson takes its name from the town in central France whose workshops wove flat tapestry floor coverings for chateaux and townhouses from the 17th century onward, and the style has been copied ever since because the drawing is so recognizable. This example was hand-woven in China, which is where the great majority of good Aubusson reproduction work is done today. The technique is slow: the weaver builds the image color by color across a cotton warp, packing the wool wefts by hand so each rose, leaf and ribbon is a separately woven shape rather than a printed one. Turn a corner of the rug over and you see the design mirrored on the back, with the loose color ends of each motif hanging free, the honest signature of a hand-woven Oriental rug rather than a machine product. The back tag on this piece reads rug number 6356, size 8 x 10.