8' x 8' Round Oriental Rug | Dom Esfahan Dome Medallion | Wool and Silk Pile, Brand New

Seen from above, this 8' x 8' round rug reads like the inside of a dome looked at from the floor: a star medallion holds the exact center, and from it the drawing opens outward in ring after ring of panels that widen as they travel to the edge. It is hand-knotted in wool with silk carried through the highlights, which is why the pale peach and ivory passages lift and shine while the black and burgundy grounds stay deep and matte. The pile is clipped low enough to hold the fine outlines sharp, the circle runs true, and the ivory fringe is hand-tied the whole way around. Age is new and the condition is perfect, with no wear, no repair and no fading, and the rug ships with a certificate of authenticity recording its size, materials, weave and origin.

Design and Motifs

The design is the Dom Esfahan dome composition, a layout built for a circle rather than adapted to one. At the hub sits a small rosette inside a star medallion filled with curling arabesque and tiny gold blossoms. Around it radiate olive ground kite panels alternating with peach lobed cartouches, each one holding its own miniature flower head, and every panel is edged with a bead band of small ivory dots that behaves like the beaded moulding of a real ceiling. Beyond that ring runs a tier of arched niches on burgundy ground, each filled with a slender boteh scroll and a spray of pink and cream flowers, so the pattern begins to look like a colonnade under the dome. The outer field carries large black ground medallions with eight-lobe rosettes and leafy palmettes between them, then the circle closes with a peach band of cartouches, a narrow burgundy guard stripe and the fringe. Nothing is repeated carelessly: the panel ring, the niche ring and the rosette ring are each drawn to their own scale, which is what keeps the eye traveling outward instead of stopping at the medallion.

Color Palette

Three colors do the heavy lifting. Burgundy, closer to wine than to tomato red, holds the arched niche ring and the thin outer stripe. A soft black, almost brown-black where the silk catches light, fills the large outer medallion grounds and the panel edges. Between those darks runs a warm peach that shifts from pale salmon in the center to a deeper tan toward the border, and it is this peach that gives the rug its overall warm cast on the floor. The drawing itself is picked out in olive and sage green for the palmettes and arabesques, ivory and cream for the outlines and flower petals, and old gold for the small blossoms scattered through the field. Look closely and there are quieter notes as well: a grey-blue rosette at the dead center, small powder blue petals in the medallion field, and touches of rust and apricot inside the cartouches. The silk sits in the light tones, so the ivory tracery and peach grounds change tone as you walk around the circle while the dark grounds stay constant.

Origin and Weaving Quality

This piece was made in China, in the workshop tradition that produces some of the most finely drawn hand-knotted Oriental rug work available today: cotton foundation, wool pile with silk highlights, and a knot count fine enough to carry bead bands only a few knots wide without blurring them. A round format is harder to weave than a rectangle, because the weaver has to step the width in and out row by row while keeping the pattern concentric, then finish the curved selvedge and the fringe by hand around the entire circumference. Here the circle closes cleanly, the medallion sits dead center, and the rings stay true, which is the test for this layout. At 8 feet across it settles under a round dining table, in a rotunda or entry, or beneath a chandelier where the dome drawing can be read properly, and it sits comfortably alongside the other hand-knotted Oriental rugs we import directly.