9'11" x 12'9" Persian Tabriz Rug | Honey Field, Navy Geometric Medallion | Excellent Condition

A honey ground is unusual in a Tabriz of this scale, and it is what makes this 9'11" x 12'9" piece worth stopping on. The warm field carries a full geometric medallion in deep navy, ivory spandrels at the 4 corners of the inner panel, and a burgundy main border that pulls the whole composition together. The wool is dense and evenly clipped at 3/8", the sides and ends are sound, and the rug has never been used on a floor. It covers the same footprint as most 10x13 Persian rugs, which suits a full seating group or a large dining table with chairs pulled clear. Every rug ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an ivory cartouche with an 8 petal rosette, set inside a navy geometric medallion outlined in bright pink, with matching navy pendants reaching top and bottom. An octagonal frame drawn in ivory and pale grey encloses the field and steps into the 4 ivory corner panels, each one filled with rose pink lozenges, blue vases and small animal figures. Between the medallion and that frame, the honey ground is filled edge to edge with serrated palmettes, cypress sprays, hooked vine, little tufted flower heads and scattered rosettes, all drawn in the angular Tabriz manner rather than the curved court line. The main border repeats an alternating palmette and cypress motif on burgundy, flanked by a soft gold vine guard band and narrow ivory and blue minor stripes.

A Honey Field Framed in Burgundy

The field reads as warm honey with a peach cast where the light catches the pile, deepening toward soft brown in the shadows. That warm ground is the reason the cooler notes land so hard: the medallion is a saturated indigo navy, the corner ornaments carry mid blue and sky blue, and the palmettes are picked out in oxblood and burgundy. Rose pink, sage green, ivory and a muted gold appear in small quantities throughout the field and guard bands, giving the rug a multi colored surface that still reads calm from across a room. The burgundy border is the darkest value on the rug and acts as a frame, holding the honey center in place. Against pale oak, limestone or a light wool carpet, the honey ground will warm the whole floor rather than fight it.

Woven in Tabriz, Northwest Persia

Tabriz sits in northwest Persia and has been the country's most organized weaving center for centuries, with workshops that measure fineness by the Raj system, the number of knots per gereh across the width. Room size pieces like this one are woven on heavy looms by two or more weavers working from a cartoon, which is why the medallion sits true to center and the border turns the corners cleanly on all 4 sides. The drawing here belongs to the geometric side of the Tabriz repertoire, closer to the village idiom of the surrounding highlands than to the floral court patterns, but executed with the tight, disciplined knotting that separates city work from village work. The wool has the slight sheen typical of good northwest Persian fleece, and at 3/8" the pile is long enough to wear for generations under daily traffic.