8' x 11' Persian Qum Rug | Pure Silk Burgundy Medallion | Signed & Never Used

Pure silk from fringe to fringe, this Persian Qum rug measures 8' x 11' and has never been laid in a home. The pile is clipped low so the drawing stays razor sharp, and the silk shifts tone as you walk around it: the burgundy field reads deep and velvety from one end, lighter and almost rose from the other. A signature cartouche is woven into the upper ivory border, which on a Qum of this class means a named workshop stood behind the piece. It is one of the larger sizes a Qum silk weaver will ever attempt, since the finer the knot the longer the loom is tied up, and a room-size silk rug can take years. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, material and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Qum oval medallion, drawn with a scalloped, cloud-band outline that curls back on itself at every lobe rather than sitting as a plain ellipse. At its center is a small burgundy cartouche filled with a single 8 petal rosette and four leaf sprays, ringed by a sage green ground of scrolling arabesque, then an ivory zone packed with tiny palmettes, lotus heads and vine tendrils. Slender pendants drop from the top and bottom of the medallion into the field. The field itself is a continuous all-over floral vine: thousands of small blossoms, curled saz leaves and buds on hair-thin stems, each flower outlined in a darker tone so it separates cleanly from the burgundy ground. Four corner spandrels in ivory echo the medallion drawing at reduced scale, each anchored by a shield-shaped rosette. The main border runs a repeating palmette and lotus vine on ivory, flanked by narrow sage guard stripes and a fine reciprocal zigzag minor band. This is the level of curvilinear drawing that only works at a very high knot count, where a curve can be described by dozens of knots instead of a few steps.

Color Palette

Burgundy carries the field, a deep wine red with a brown undertone rather than a bright tomato, and the silk gives it a lit-from-within quality that wool simply cannot produce. Against it, the ivory of the medallion, spandrels and main border reads as warm cream with a faint pearl cast, cooling toward oyster where the light strikes the pile the other way. The secondary palette does the real work: sage and olive green through the medallion ring, the guard stripes and the vine leaves, pale cornflower and slate blue picking out individual petals and the scalloped medallion outline, with soft mauve and dusty pink flower heads scattered through the border. Small red accents drop into the ivory border blossoms to tie it all back to the field. Nothing is harsh or synthetic looking; the whole scheme sits in the muted, slightly silvery register that collectors associate with the best Persian silk rugs, and it will pull warmth out of dark hardwood while keeping a room from going heavy.

Qum Weaving and Quality

Qum sits in central Persia and is a relative newcomer among the great weaving cities, with serious production beginning in the 20th century, yet it climbed to the top on one decision: Qum uses only the finest silk, and the rivalry between its workshops keeps pushing the fineness higher. Weavers there work on a silk foundation with a very short pile, so the knot count per square inch runs far above what a wool city rug reaches, and details like the 4 corner spandrels or a single outlined petal stay legible at arm's length. You can see the result on the back of this piece in the close-up: dense, even, minutely regular knotting across the full 8 foot width, with straight selvedges and a clean, untrimmed silk fringe. Among 8x11 Persian rugs, a signed all-silk Qum in unused condition is the uncommon end of the market, the kind of rug that gets bought once and kept.