9'10" x 12'10" Persian Tabriz Rug | All Over Floral Design | Signed Cartouche, Excellent Condition

This 9'10" x 12'10" Persian Tabriz is a workshop piece in the classic northwest Persian manner: a brick red field carried edge to edge with flowering vinework, framed by a wide ivory main border and two narrow sea green guard stripes. It was hand-knotted on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" wool pile, and the weaver signed the work in a small cartouche set into the guard border, which almost always means the rug left a named atelier rather than a village loom. The pile is full and even across the whole surface, the sides and ends are sound, and the drawing stays crisp right into the corners. At just under 10 feet by 13 feet it sits squarely in the most useful room size in the house, and buyers comparing 10x13 Persian rugs will find few at this level of drawing. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. Instead the weaver worked a true all over design, a continuous lattice of scrolling vines that repeats and mirrors across the length of the field. Large serrated palmettes anchor the composition on the vertical axis, alternating with fan shaped lotus heads, curled acanthus leaves and small eight petal rosettes. Between them sit big shield shaped blossoms outlined in ivory and filled with blue and green, the kind of drawing that requires a curved line the weaver has to follow knot by knot. Fine tendrils link every element so the eye never stops on a blank patch of ground. The ivory main border runs a turtle palmette and rosette meander, and the narrow green stripes on either side of it carry a running vine that reads almost like a ribbon. The corners resolve cleanly, which is a fair test of whether the cartoon was drawn properly before a single knot went down.

The Red and Ivory Palette

The field is a deep brick red with a slight tomato warmth, not the blue-leaning burgundy of a Sarough and not the pale rose of a washed piece. Against it the ivory main border reads as clean cream with a faint honey cast where the wool takes the light. The supporting colors are what lift this rug out of the ordinary: a soft sea green in both guard stripes and in the leafwork, a muted sage that shades the palmette petals, a dark indigo used sparingly for outlines and flower centers, and small hits of gold, salmon pink and pale sky blue scattered through the blossoms. Ivory outlining around every major motif keeps the red from swallowing the pattern, so the design stays legible from across a room. The overall effect is warm and formal at once, and it sits comfortably with dark wood, brass and cream upholstery without dictating the rest of the scheme.

Tabriz Weaving and Quality

Tabriz sits in the far northwest of Persia and has been the commercial and artistic center of Persian weaving for centuries, the city that revived the export trade and trained much of the country in cartoon drawing and the hook knife. Tabriz workshops measure fineness in Raj, the number of knots across a gereh of about 2.75 inches, and grade themselves ruthlessly against one another, which is why a signed Tabriz carries weight. This piece shows the marks of that tradition: a tight, regular knot laid on a taut cotton warp, a low clipped pile that keeps the fine vinework sharp, and wool with the dry lustre typical of the region's flocks. The back is even and the knot rows are straight, the sign of a loom kept under proper tension over the many months a rug this size takes. Laid flat, it lies dead level, ready for a dining table or a full seating group without shifting.