9'1" x 12' Ziegler Chobi Peshawar Rug | Coral Red and Blue All-Over Floral | Organic Wool

This is a recently woven Ziegler Chobi from Peshawar in a true room size, 9'1" x 12', hand-knotted in organic wool on a cotton foundation with a short 1/4" pile that keeps the drawing crisp and lets the rug sit flat under furniture. The field is an antique coral red carrying a gentle abrash from the hand-spun yarn, and it is framed by a wide soft blue border that is unusual and considerably more decorative than the ivory borders most Chobi weaving is given. Condition is perfect, with full pile, straight sides and clean ivory fringe at both ends. It belongs to the most useful group of all, 9 x 12 area rugs, which will cover a standard living room wall to wall or hold a dining table with chairs pulled out. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. The field carries a large-scale all-over floral design built on a thin vine scroll that repeats down the length of the rug and mirrors across the width. The repeat is made of broad open rosettes with serrated petal edges, split palmettes, long curling saw-tooth leaves, small 8 petal flowerheads and ivory cloudband scrolls set between the larger blossoms. Because the motifs are drawn big and spaced apart, the rug reads calm from across the room and detailed up close. The main border runs a stately procession of shield palmettes flanked by curved leaves and small red hooked stems, and it is bracketed by two guard stripes of linked rosettes with tiny brick-red squares. All 4 corners resolve cleanly, which is a real mark of care at this scale.

Color: Antique Coral Red Against Soft Blue

The ground is an antique coral red, warmer and dustier than a tomato red, with a faint horizontal variation through the field that comes from small dye lots of hand-spun wool rather than from any wear. Against it the drawing is worked in ivory, cream and pale straw, with a great deal of powder blue in the flowerheads and leaf tips and occasional sage green. The wide main border shifts to a soft slate blue that photographs almost grey in daylight, filled with gold and camel palmettes outlined in chocolate brown, with small clear red accents that tie the border back to the field. Outer and inner guard stripes are ivory and old gold, and the rug finishes with a narrow coral red outer band and red end panels above the natural ivory fringe. The overall effect is warm but soft, easy to live with next to cream, walnut and brass.

Peshawar Weaving and Quality

Peshawar is the center of Ziegler Chobi weaving, and the best workshops there produce some of the most consistent hand-knotted work available today. Chobi means wood, a reference to the natural and vegetable dyes that give these rugs their muted tonality, and the Ziegler name comes from the 19th century Ziegler and Company workshops whose large-scale floral drawings were made for Western rooms. The wool here is organic, hand-spun and high in lanolin, which is what gives the pile its slight sheen and its resilience underfoot. Knotting is even across the full 12 feet of length, the selvages are tightly wrapped and the back shows a regular, well-packed weave. If you are weighing this against other origins, our guide to the difference between a traditional and an Oriental rug is worth reading before you decide.