9'2" x 13'3" Pakistani Chobi Rug | Brown All Over Floral Field | Ivory Palmette Border

This hand-knotted Chobi measures 9'2" x 13'3", which is true room size: a full seating group sits on it, or a 10 seat table with chairs pulled back. The field is a soft brown, closer to mushroom and walnut than chocolate, and it is covered edge to edge in flowering vinework drawn in gold, straw and sage. A wide ivory border frames it and keeps the brown from reading heavy in a room with dark furniture. The pile is 3/8 inch wool on a cotton foundation, the condition is excellent with no wear, repair or color run, and the piece ships with our certificate of authenticity. Among large hand-knotted area rugs this is one of the easier ones to live with, because the palette is neutral without being flat.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. Instead the weaver ran a continuous all over floral design across the whole field, built from split palmettes, curling serrated leaves, open 8 petal rosettes and small carnation sprays linked by a thin gold vine. The repeat is mirrored on both axes, so the rug reads the same from either end of the room and there is no wrong direction to lay it. The main ivory border alternates a large leafy palmette with a dense feathered leaf, and it is held in place by two narrow guard stripes: a rust ground rosette meander on the outside and a fine cream and gold vine on the inside. Four corners are drawn properly, with the border pattern turned rather than cut off, which is the detail that separates a workshop piece from a quick commercial weave. The drawing stays crisp at the tips of the leaves, visible in the close corner photographs.

The Color Palette in Detail

The field is a muted, slightly greyed brown with a warm undertone, the kind of shade that shifts toward taupe in daylight and toward bronze under lamps. Over it the vines and palmettes are worked in old gold, pale straw and a soft celadon to sage green, with occasional blush and apricot flower heads and tiny dark navy dots at the centers of the rosettes, which gives the surface depth when you look closely. The border ground is a creamy ivory with a faint sand cast rather than a stark white, and the leaf forms inside it are sage, olive and warm honey with small brick red flower centers. The rust guard stripes are the only strong color in the rug, and they act like piping around the ivory. Because there is nothing loud in the range, it belongs with the softer brown rugs that sit well with oak, walnut, linen upholstery and warm white walls.

Origin and Weaving Quality

Chobi weaving is the signature product of the workshops around Lahore and Peshawar, where hand-spun wool, a classical floral repertoire and a soft washed finish are combined to produce a traditional Oriental rug with a quieter, more decorative palette than the older sources. Pakistan is now one of the few places still producing hand-knotted goods at this scale and this level of finish, and this piece is a good example of why. The folded back corner shows a tight, even knot count with straight rows and no pulling, the selvedges are wrapped cleanly, and the cotton warps are the same weight from end to end, which is what keeps a 13 foot rug lying flat. The 3/8 inch wool pile is dense underfoot and has the low sheen that comes from good fleece rather than from chemical treatment. Wool this springy in a rug of this size is meant for real use, not for a guest room nobody walks through.