8' x 10' Soltanabad Design Oriental Rug | Rust Field, Navy Multi-Border | Brand New, Never Used

This is a brand new, never used 8' x 10' hand-knotted wool rug drawn in the Soltanabad idiom, with a warm rust field carried edge to edge by an all-over pattern and framed by a deep navy main border. It is a true Oriental rug, knotted entirely by hand on a cotton foundation with a wool pile, and it ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming construction, materials, origin and size. The weight is substantial without being heavy, the handle is firm, and the pile is cut at a medium height that holds the drawing crisply, as the folded corner in the last photograph shows. At 8 feet by 10 feet it is the most useful room size there is, which is why our selection of 8x10 Oriental rugs turns over faster than any other.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. The field is a repeating all-over design built on a lattice of thin stems, with stepped star rosettes, cruciform blossoms, serrated leaves, angular palmettes and small hooked brackets spaced in rows across the rust ground. The drawing is deliberately angular, straight lines and flat facets rather than curved vine, which is what gives Soltanabad and Serapi style weaving its village character. Four large bracket forms in navy and light blue anchor the center of the field, and small animal and bird silhouettes are tucked between the flowers if you look closely at the detail photograph. The navy main border runs a chain of gold and ivory hexagonal cartouches alternating with ivory eight petal rosettes and paired paisley boteh, and that border is flanked inside and out by light blue guard stripes filled with a running scroll. A fine rust edge finishes all 4 sides.

The Rust and Navy Palette

The field reads as a soft terracotta rust, closer to brick and clay than to orange, and it moves slightly in tone from one end of the rug to the other the way hand dyed wool does. Against it sits a dark inky navy in the main border, almost black where the pile turns away from the light, and a much lighter powder blue in the guard stripes and in many of the field motifs. That two level blue is what makes the rug work: the pale blue lifts the pattern off the rust ground while the navy holds everything in. Ivory and bone appear in the rosettes and in the small blossoms, antique gold fills the border cartouches and some of the field leaves, and there are quiet touches of dusty rose, olive and charcoal scattered through the motifs. It is a warm rug overall, and it sits easily with wood floors, leather, brass and cream walls.

Woven in India in the Soltanabad Tradition

India is where most of the world's good contemporary hand-knotted work is now made, and we say that with confidence after decades of buying both old and new. This piece was knotted by hand in India on a cotton warp, following the Soltanabad design vocabulary that decorators have asked for continuously for more than a century. The weave is even and regular from selvage to selvage, the rows of knots are tightly packed, the ends are hand finished and the side cords are wrapped in matching wool, all of which you can see in the close-up of the folded corner. A good geometric rug of this type is built to be walked on for generations, and because the wool pile is dense and the colors are spread evenly across the field, traffic patterns and furniture placement will not show the way they do on a thin, single color rug.