9'11" x 12'11" Persian Tabriz Rug | Ivory Field Octagonal Medallion | Soft Wool Pile, Excellent Condition

This is a room-size Persian Tabriz measuring 9'11" x 12'11", hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a trimmed 3/8" pile that still shows full, even body from selvage to selvage. It reads as a classic drawing-room piece: an ivory field carrying a deep ruby octagonal medallion, framed by a burnt orange main border and a run of narrow guard stripes. The back photograph shows straight, regular rows and a tight, disciplined knot line, the sort of weave you only get from a workshop loom rather than a village one. Condition is excellent, with clean ends, intact side cords and no repairs visible. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction. If you are shopping the 10x13 Persian rug class, this one fills a large room without going oversize.

Design and Motifs

The center is an 8 sided medallion outlined in serrated ivory, filled with a symmetrical arrangement of blue arabesque leaves, 4 small caged flower panels and a lozenge rosette at the exact core. Above and below it, narrow pendants step out into the ivory ground and terminate in small diamond finials. The ivory field itself is not empty: it is drawn with palmettes, cypress and vase forms, split leaf vines, tiny lattice fills and scattered rosettes, all rendered in the angular, straight-line manner Tabriz weavers use when they work a geometric cartoon. The 4 corner spandrels are ruby red with stepped edges and repeat the field vocabulary in miniature. Around that, the main border runs a burnt orange ground with linked cartouches and hooked palmette heads, flanked by reciprocal sawtooth stripes, a meandering vine guard and a fine barber-pole outer stripe. The drawing is symmetrical on both axes, so the rug reads correctly from any side of the room.

Ivory, Ruby Red and Burnt Orange

The field is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than to white, and it takes light differently depending on which way the pile is brushed, going pale and luminous with the nap and slightly buttery against it. The medallion and spandrels are a deep ruby red with a faint wine cast, dark enough to anchor the whole composition. The main border shifts the temperature to burnt orange, a soft terracotta that keeps the outer frame from competing with the center. Inside that three-color structure the weaver worked in a full secondary palette: navy and sky blue through the medallion arabesques, rose pink in the field flowers, sage and forest green in the leaves, gold and camel in the outlines, with small flashes of coral. The guard stripes are navy and ivory, which is what makes the border edges look crisp from across a room.

Tabriz Weaving and Quality

Tabriz sits in northwest Persia and has been the country's most organized weaving city for centuries, working from paper cartoons on vertical looms with a hook-ended knife that lets a weaver set knots fast and keep the line true. That discipline is what you see here: rows that stay level over almost 13 feet, borders that turn the corner without the drawing collapsing, and a medallion that is genuinely symmetrical rather than approximately so. The wool is local highland fleece, springy and slightly lustrous, which is why the pile still stands upright after being clipped low. Tabriz also produces the widest quality range in Persia, from coarse commercial goods to 70 Raj masterpieces, and this piece sits comfortably in the good workshop band: a tight, even back, clear color separation and a design executed with control. Browse more Persian Tabriz rugs to compare weave and palette.