9'10" x 12'8" Persian Tabriz Rug | Berry Red Wool and Silk Medallion | 60 Raj, Approx. 400 KPSI, Never Used

This is a workshop piece in the full Tabriz manner, hand-knotted in wool with silk highlights on a cotton foundation and never put down in a home. At 60 Raj, roughly 400 knots per square inch, the drawing holds its curves cleanly all the way into the smallest flower heads, and the silk catches light along the vines and medallion outlines as you walk around it. The pile is still crisp, the ivory fringe is bright, and the colors have the saturation of a rug that has never seen a season of sun. It arrives with a certificate of authenticity confirming the origin, materials and hand-knotted construction. Among 10x13 Persian rugs, this is the proportion that covers a full seating group without crowding the walls.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Tabriz medallion and corner formula, drawn with unusual density. At the center sits a 16 lobed star medallion ringed by a dark cartouche band, each cartouche carrying its own small palmette, and finished with a toothed ivory and gold outline. Two stepped pendants run off the medallion along the long axis, each one a miniature of the center. Around them the field carries a continuous curvilinear vinery: split palmettes, lotus heads, rosettes, serrated saz leaves and fine tendrils that never repeat in an obvious block, with small birds worked into the scroll near the pendants for anyone who looks closely. The 4 corner spandrels are drawn as large cloud band cartouches on a soft mauve ground, which lifts them away from the field rather than letting them merge into the border. Three borders frame the whole: a wide main band of alternating palmettes and rosettes, flanked by two ivory guard stripes of running vine, and a narrow outer stripe that keeps the edge tidy.

Berry Red, Deep Navy and Ice Blue

The field is a deep berry red, closer to ripe cherry than to brick, and it holds its tone evenly from selvage to selvage with no abrash streaking. Against it the main border reads as a very dark navy that goes almost black in low light, which is what makes the pink, rose and ivory flowers inside it look lit from within. The medallion center is the surprise: a pale ice blue ground, almost silvery, carrying a rose and olive 8 petal rosette with small teal and sage leaf forms around it. Ivory does the structural work, running through both guard borders and picking out the outlines of the field flowers so the pattern stays legible from standing height. Soft mauve fills the 4 spandrels, and true greens appear in the leafwork, ranging from a dark bottle green in the border to a lighter sage in the field. Blush pink, gold, tan and small touches of burgundy fill in between. It is a multi-colored rug built on a disciplined red, navy and ivory spine.

Woven in Tabriz, Northwest Persia

Tabriz sits in northwest Persia and has been the reference point for fine city weaving for centuries, with its own counting system: Raj, the number of knots across a gereh of about 2.75 inches. 40 Raj is ordinary commercial work and 50 Raj is already fine; at 60 Raj, near 400 knots per square inch, a weaver is in collector territory and the workshop can draw a true curve instead of approximating it with steps. You can see the payoff in the medallion outline and in the way the vine scrolls stay round. Tabriz weavers work on a cotton foundation with a hook knife, which is why the back is so even and the rug lies flat straight out of the roll. Wool from the surrounding highlands takes dye deeply and wears hard, and the silk here is used as highlight rather than as the whole pile, so the rug keeps the durability of a wool floor covering while picking up the sheen of silk where the design wants emphasis. Browse more Persian Tabriz rugs to compare weave and palette.