9'1" x 11'9" Oriental Haji Jalili Rug | Brown Field Floral Medallion | Natural Wool, Never Used

This 9'1" x 11'9" room size rug is a careful reading of the Haji Jalili drawing, hand-knotted in natural wool on a cotton foundation and still carrying the full, untouched clip of a rug that has never been on a floor. The field is a warm mid brown, closer to milk chocolate than to red, and it is drawn edge to edge with fine vine work that gathers into a lobed ivory medallion at the center. Roll it back and the reverse is clean and even, the knots small enough to hold the curve of every leaf tip. It ships with a certificate of authenticity, and at just over 9 by nearly 12 feet it lands in the most requested footprint we sell, which is why we keep a deep bench of 9x12 Oriental rugs on the floor at any given time.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a lobed ivory medallion built around an 8 petal rosette, with a small red and cream flowerhead at its exact core and pendants running off both ends along the long axis. Above and below it the same ivory cartouche shape repeats, so the field reads as a linked chain of medallions rather than a single isolated one, and the drawing mirrors cleanly across all 4 corners. Filling the brown ground between them is a dense lattice of curling serrated leaves, palmettes, small 5 petal blossoms and thin rust colored vines that never quite close on themselves. Scattered near the field corners are a few dark green flowering sprays, a quiet asymmetry that keeps the whole thing from looking printed. The border system is the other half of the story: a wide ivory main band of rosettes and leafy meanders, flanked by rust grounds, a sage green stripe and several narrow guard stripes, so that the eye crosses 7 distinct bands before it reaches the field.

A Brown, Beige, Green and Rust Palette

The ground color is the reason to buy this one. It is a soft, slightly smoky brown that shifts between coffee and warm taupe as the light moves across the pile, with the low angle photographs showing it several shades deeper than the flat overhead view. Against it the medallion and spandrels sit in beige and oatmeal ivory, while the floral detail comes in straw gold, apricot, buttery cream, and a muted sage to olive green that turns up again in the border stripes. Rust and brick red do the outlining work, tracing the medallion edge and the vine stems so the pattern stays legible from across a room, and small charcoal accents punctuate the flowerheads. There is no hard black, no bright white and no cool blue anywhere in the palette, which makes it an unusually easy rug to live with over oak, walnut or warm stone floors.

Origin and Weaving Quality

This rug was hand-knotted in Pakistan, home to some of the most disciplined workshop weaving being done today, on a cotton warp and weft with a pile of natural handspun wool that has a dry, slightly waxy luster rather than a synthetic shine. The design name honors Haji Jalili, the 19th century Tabriz workshop master whose fine drawing and muted grounds collectors have chased for more than a century, and reproducing that drawing takes a knot small enough to turn a curve without stepping it. You can judge the weave yourself in the close-ups: the leaf outlines stay unbroken, the border rosettes repeat at an even rhythm around all 4 sides, the selvages are tightly overcast in brown and the fringe is a continuation of the warp rather than a sewn-on addition. If you are weighing the difference between a piece like this and a Persian city weave, our guide on what separates a Persian rug from an Oriental rug is worth the 5 minutes. Either way, this one arrives in perfect condition, unwalked on, with every millimeter of pile height still in it.