9'11" x 12'10" Persian Tabriz Rug | Ivory All Over Floral Field | Signed Workshop Piece

This is a signed Tabriz in the format buyers ask for most and find least often: a true room size at 9'11" x 12'10", drawn all over rather than around a central medallion, on a quiet ivory ground. The weaver put his name in a small cartouche inside the border, which on a Tabriz means a named workshop stood behind the piece rather than an anonymous village loom. The wool pile is 3/8" and still dense underfoot, the ivory has stayed clean and even across the whole field, and the drawing holds its rhythm corner to corner. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction. Among 10x13 Persian rugs, a signed ivory Tabriz in this condition is a genuinely uncommon find.

Design and Motifs

The field is a classic all over floral design, built on a lattice of thin arabesque vines that loop, cross and double back so no single element dominates. Sitting on that framework are lobed palmettes, 8 petal rosettes in red and gold, small cypress and bud forms, split curled leaves and scattered cluster blossoms in rose and sky blue. The repeat mirrors on both axes, which is why the rug reads as balanced from any seat in the room and why it works equally well turned 90 degrees. The main border is the Tabriz curled leaf and palmette band on ivory, each cartouche shape filled with indigo and green leaf work, and it is framed by narrow guard stripes carrying a running vine with tiny red dots. The corner resolution in the close-up shows the drawing turning cleanly into the corner instead of being chopped off, which is a cartoon and weaving detail that separates workshop production from village copies.

The Ivory Ground and Its Color Range

The ground is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than white, with the faint natural variation in the wool that only hand-spun yarn gives. Against it the palette is broad but restrained in scale: rose red and deeper burgundy in the palmette centers, indigo and a lighter sky blue in the leaf work and small florets, forest green in the curled leaves, soft old gold in the vine outlines and pink in the smaller blossoms. Because every color appears in small doses spread evenly across the field, the rug reads as a light neutral from standing height and only reveals its full range up close. That behavior is what makes an ivory Tabriz so easy to live with: it lifts a dark floor, sits under almost any upholstery color, and picks up whatever accent tone is already in the room. The border reverses the balance, packing deeper reds, greens and navy around the pale field to give the whole piece a defined edge.

Tabriz Weaving and the Signature

Tabriz sits in the northwest of Persia and has been the country's most organized weaving city for centuries, with named workshops, professional designers and the Raj system for measuring fineness. The hallmark of the city is curved line drawing, and a flowing vine lattice like this one only holds its shape when the knot count is high enough to turn a smooth curve, which is exactly what the ruler shot against the weave shows. The construction is the standard Tabriz recipe of a cotton foundation with a tightly packed wool pile, cut low so the outlines stay crisp. The cartouche woven into the border carries the maker's name in Persian script, the usual sign of a piece made under a master's supervision rather than for open market volume. Seen alongside other Persian Tabriz rugs, the combination of a signed border, an ivory all over field and an honest 10x13 footprint puts this one in a narrow group.