8' x 10' Sage Green Needlepoint Rug | Aubusson Floral Medallion | Hand-Knotted Wool, Excellent Condition

Needlepoint is the quietest thing on our floor. Worked entirely by hand in wool over a cotton ground, this 8' x 10' piece carries a soft sage green field, an ivory medallion full of roses, and a flat, close surface that behaves more like an 18th century French tapestry than a deep-pile floor rug. It has never been used, the wool is clean and unwalked, and the drawing is still crisp at every scroll tip. Rooms that already have a lot going on tend to fight a bold rug; this one settles everything down instead. Buyers looking at 8 x 10 area rugs for a living room or a formal dining room usually land here when they want pattern without weight. It ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The layout is pure Aubusson. A large lobed medallion sits dead center on an ivory ground, outlined twice in caramel and beaded with a fine dotted line, and inside it a full bouquet of open cabbage roses, small daisies and trailing buds spills across the panel with olive leaves fanning out behind them. Around the medallion the field is filled edge to edge with scrolling acanthus, curling tendrils and pale ghosted palmettes that are drawn tone on tone rather than in contrast, so they read as texture from standing height and as full drawing when you kneel down. Each of the 4 corners holds a rococo cartouche framing its own rose spray, and a fifth floral cluster is set at the midpoint of each border, tying the frame back to the center. The borders run in bands: a narrow garland of small blossoms and leaves on ivory, a plain sage panel, a thin gold line, and finally a wide flat taupe outer band that acts like a mat around a painting. There is no pile to hide behind here, so every leaf and petal is built stitch by stitch, and the close-up photograph shows how many shades of green and pink go into a single rose.

A Sage Green, Rose and Ivory Palette

Sage green is the anchor, and it is not a flat single green: the field shifts between a cool celadon and a warmer khaki gold depending on the light, with the scrollwork picked out in soft straw and caramel. The medallion ground is a pale ivory that warms toward cream, and the flowers sit on it in dusty rose, salmon, blush and the occasional deeper raspberry accent, never bright, always slightly faded in the way old French work is. Leaves run through moss, olive and a grey sage that keeps the greenery from looking new. The outer border is a flat greige taupe, the darkest value on the rug, and it frames the whole composition without adding a hard edge. Contrast overall is deliberately low, which is why this palette sits so easily with oak and walnut floors, painted furniture, linen upholstery, and the greens and creams already common in traditional interiors. It brings color to a room without dictating it.

Chinese Needlepoint Workshops and the Aubusson Tradition

The design tradition is French, from the Aubusson workshops of the 18th century, but the making of this piece is Chinese, and China has been the world's most accomplished source of hand-worked needlepoint for decades. Every stitch is placed by hand over a cotton grid, which is what gives the back its even gridded appearance in the photograph, and the count of stitches is what allows the roses to be shaded rather than blocked in. The result is flat, dense and remarkably practical: no pile to crush under a dining table, chair legs slide without catching, and a good wool needlepoint holds its drawing for generations with routine care. If you are weighing this against a knotted piece, it is worth reading how a French-pattern Oriental rug differs in construction and in look. In excellent, never-used condition, with full selvages and clean ends, this one is ready to go straight down.