8' x 12' Persian Tabriz Rug | Ivory Field Geometric Medallion | Excellent Condition Wool Pile

This 8' x 12' Persian Tabriz is a town workshop piece drawn on graph paper and knotted by hand in wool over a cotton foundation, with the pile clipped to 3/8" so the outlines stay crisp. The ivory field carries a salmon octagonal medallion and 4 brick red corner spandrels, a layout Tabriz weavers have refined for generations. The wool has kept its natural sheen, the sides and ends are original and tight, and the reverse shows an even, disciplined knot line with no repairs or reweaves, which is why it is graded in excellent condition. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction, and at this footprint it sits comfortably among large Persian area rugs that anchor a full seating group.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a large 8 sided salmon medallion with a serrated, stepped outline, and inside it a small ivory lozenge set with a single rosette, flanked by deep navy palmettes and red tulip heads. Radiating from the medallion are 2 pendant finials, each drawn as a stacked arrangement of leaves and blossoms. The ivory ground around it is not left open: it is filled with angular vine work, split palmettes, 8 petal rosettes, feathered leaves and small upright sprays that read almost like miniature garden beds. The 4 spandrels are brick red and repeat the same vocabulary in mirror image, so the eye travels cleanly from corner to center. Framing all of it is a wide apricot main border of alternating vases, palmettes and leafy stems, held between navy guard stripes and a fine reciprocal outer stripe. This is geometric Persian rug drawing at its most controlled, every line resolved on the knot rather than smoothed over.

The Ivory, Salmon and Navy Palette

Ivory dominates and it is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than white, which keeps the rug from feeling cold underfoot or under daylight. Against it the medallion reads salmon to soft coral, a rose tinted apricot that shifts lighter or deeper depending on which end of the pile you view from. The corner spandrels and the inner frame are a saturated brick red with a faint cochineal undertone, and the main border repeats the medallion apricot so the 2 warm zones speak to each other across the ivory field. Detail colors do the rest of the work: midnight navy for the palmettes, outlines and guard stripes, sky blue for the small bird like leaf forms, sage and olive green for stems and leaf blades, mustard gold for rosette centers, and small hits of pure red and plum in the flower heads. The overall effect is a warm, multi colored surface that reads calm from across the room and unusually busy and rewarding up close.

Tabriz Weaving and Why This 8' x 12' Holds Up

Tabriz sits in the northwest of Persia and has been the commercial and technical center of Persian weaving for centuries, the city that standardized cartoon drawn designs and measures its fineness by the Raj, the count of knots per gereh across the width. Tabriz workshops use a hooked knife and work to a master's cartoon, which is exactly why a piece like this can hold a serrated medallion outline straight for 8 feet without wobbling. The back of this rug shows a compact, regular knot face with the ivory cotton warps clearly visible, the sign of a properly tensioned loom and a weaver who did not rush the beat down. Combined with the hard wearing local highland wool and a 3/8" clip, this is a floor rug built for daily traffic rather than a display piece, and it will burnish rather than wear out under it.