9'10" x 12'11" Persian Tabriz Rug | Geometric Stepped Medallion | Rust & Ivory Wool Pile

This is a room-filling Persian Tabriz in the classic northwest formula: a rust field carrying a single ivory and red stepped star medallion, deep navy borders, and ivory corner spandrels that square off the composition. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, cropped evenly across all 118" of width, and the surface still has the dry, slightly crisp handle of a rug that has been looked after. At 9'10" x 12'11" it sits squarely in the most useful of all room sizes, and shoppers comparing 10x13 Persian rugs will find this one unusually well drawn for the size. Every rug ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an 8 point stepped star medallion outlined in ivory, filled with a red ground and anchored by a sage green rosette at the exact middle, with small pendant finials reaching top and bottom into the field. Around it a navy octagonal frame carries paired ivory cartouches and stylized leaf sprays, and the four ivory spandrels repeat the same vocabulary in mirror image, each finished with a crisp stepped outline rather than a curved one. The field between medallion and corners is packed with angular vines, serrated leaves, palmettes and small rosettes, the drawing that makes this one of the more readable geometric Persian rugs at this scale. The wide navy main border runs a rhythm of boteh and shield forms separated by small combed sprigs, flanked by pale blue and red guard stripes that keep the whole layout contained.

A Rust Field Framed in Navy and Ivory

Rust is the governing color here, a warm terracotta that shifts toward brick under low light and toward salmon in daylight, which is exactly how good madder-toned wool behaves. Against it the navy of the border and the medallion frame reads almost black at a distance and resolves into a clear indigo up close, while the ivory of the medallion, spandrels and guard stripes provides the high contrast that keeps the drawing legible from across a room. The green is used sparingly and to real effect: a sage rosette at the medallion core, olive leaf tips in the field vines, and small green accents scattered through the border shields. Touches of deep red, pale sky blue, soft gold and charcoal fill in the smaller motifs, so the palette stays rich without ever becoming busy.

Woven in Tabriz, Northwest Persia

Tabriz sits in northwest Persia and has been the commercial and technical center of Persian weaving for centuries, known for disciplined workshop production and for measuring fineness by the Raj system, the count of knots per gereh across the width. Tabriz weavers work both the curvilinear court styles and the angular village drawing of the districts east of the city, and this rug belongs firmly to the second group: straight lines, stepped corners, a bold central medallion, all executed with more precision and finer detail than village looms usually manage. You can see it in the small motifs, where each leaf tip and boteh outline holds its shape cleanly instead of blurring, and in the borders, which track true over nearly 13 feet of length. The wool is tightly beaten onto a cotton foundation, giving the rug a firm, flat lie and the kind of durability that carries a 10x13 through decades of real use.