8' x 11'8" Chinese Needlepoint Flat Weave Rug | French Aubusson Floral Design | Brand New

This 8' x 11'8" needlepoint flat weave rug is a full French Aubusson composition, stitched in wool over a cotton canvas grid so the surface sits almost level with the floor. A warm terracotta ground carries scrolling acanthus, ripe fruit and small garden flowers from edge to edge, and because there is effectively no pile the drawing reads flat and painterly, closer to a woven tapestry than to a thick knotted floor covering. At 96 inches by 140 inches it holds a full sofa group or a 10 seat dining table, which places it comfortably among large 8x12 area rugs without the bulk of a deep pile weave. The piece is brand new, never used, and ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

There is no medallion here. The field is a true all-over floral design, built from large curling acanthus leaves that repeat on a diagonal rhythm and throw off secondary stems as they travel. Tucked into the scrolls are blushing pomegranates and tulip-shaped buds, drooping clusters of berries drawn like grapes, and small 5 petal blossoms scattered at the joints. The border repeats the same vocabulary as a continuous garland: fruit, leaves and open flowers linked by a swagging stem, framed inside and out by narrow olive and gold guard stripes. Look at the corner in the detail photograph and you can see the drawing has been resolved properly rather than simply cut off, which is the mark of a well set cartoon. The shading is done in graduated tones rather than hard outlines, so each leaf turns and each fruit rounds the way it would in a French painting.

A Terracotta Ground with Green, Gold and Blue

The ground is a soft terracotta, a brick red warmed toward clay and salmon rather than a bright crimson, and it carries every other color in the piece. The leafwork runs through an unusually wide green range: chartreuse and pale celadon on the turned faces, mid sage through the stems, and deep olive where a leaf folds under itself. Gold and antique mustard light the largest acanthus scrolls and the guard lines. The blues supply the cool counterpoint, moving from teal and slate on the berry clusters to a clearer cornflower on the small open flowers, several of them centered with a dot of ivory or gold. Pink and salmon blossoms and cream highlighted fruit soften the palette further. Under lamplight the terracotta deepens and the greens pull back; under daylight the gold and blue come forward. The overall effect is warm and mellow rather than loud, and it sits easily with walnut, cherry, painted furniture and aged parquet.

Chinese Needlepoint Workshops and Weaving Quality

Needlepoint floor pieces of this type are made in Chinese workshops that took over the French Aubusson repertoire and now produce most of the good hand-stitched work in the world. Each stitch is worked by hand through a cotton canvas, one intersection at a time, which is why the reverse shown in the last photograph reads as a dense field of anchored yarn ends rather than a knotted back. A room size piece at 96 by 140 inches represents months of steady work on the frame. The result is a durable, low profile surface that suits chairs that need to slide, doors with tight clearance and layered floors, and it belongs to the broader family of Oriental rug production even though the drawing is purely European. The wool is matte and lightly heathered, which keeps the shading soft, and the selvages and ends are finished cleanly with no sign of use.