9'3" x 12' Ivory Wool and Silk Oriental Rug | Persian-Style Floral Medallion | Never Used

This is a formal, quietly luxurious room-size piece: an ivory field carrying a single large floral medallion, hand-knotted in wool with silk woven into the flowerheads, leaf tips and medallion tracery so the pattern shifts in the light as you walk past it. At 9'3" x 12' it is a true living room and dining room size, one of the most useful proportions in the trade, and it sits comfortably alongside our other 9x12 area rugs. The pile has never been walked on, the ends and sides are original and tight, and the fringe is untouched. Every rug we ship includes a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is 100% hand-knotted, along with its measurements, materials and origin.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic curvilinear medallion formula, drawn with a light hand rather than a heavy one. A round sunburst medallion fills the center of the field, built from concentric rings of lobed cartouches and long curved boteh shaped leaves radiating out like petals from a small rosette at the very center. Four quarter spandrels repeat the same vocabulary in the corners, and two large shield shaped pendants anchor the medallion top and bottom. Around all of it the open ivory ground is covered with a fine scrolling vine: split palmettes, serrated acanthus leaves, small 5 petal blossoms and clustered flowerheads, all mirrored across both axes so the field stays balanced without becoming stiff. The border system runs 5 bands deep, a main vine border flanked by narrow reciprocal guard stripes, with an outer floral meander that frames the whole field cleanly. Drawing this much curved line requires a tight weave, and the close-up of the back shows a fine, even, well packed knot structure on a pale cotton foundation.

Ivory and Sage Green Color Palette

The field is a warm cream ivory, close to unbleached wool, and it does almost all the work here by staying quiet. Against it the secondary color is sage: a soft, grayed, slightly dusty green that appears in the medallion ring, the corner spandrels, the large pendant palmettes and the main border ground, so the eye travels from center to corner to border on the same tone. The medallion core warms into camel and pale gold, which keeps the center from reading cold. Detail colors are used sparingly and they matter: rose and old brick pink in the small rosettes, deep navy and near black outlining in the leaf tips and blossom centers, soft celadon and ice blue in the silk highlights, and touches of clean white that pick up the light. The silk sits mainly in the flowerheads and the medallion tracery, which is why those areas look brighter and slightly wet compared with the matte wool ground. Overall it is a low contrast, pale, light reflecting palette that works with cream, greige, oak, brass and gray blue interiors rather than fighting them.

Origin and Weaving Quality

This rug was made in China, in the workshop tradition that built its reputation on fine hand-knotted reproductions of classical medallion designs, and it is a genuine hand-knotted piece rather than a machine made or tufted imitation: knot by knot on a cotton warp, then clipped low so the drawing stays crisp. Workshops of this type work from a full cartoon and use a high knot density precisely because curved vine work, lobed cartouches and mirrored spandrels collapse at a coarse gauge. The wool is clipped short and evenly, the silk highlights are inserted as individual knots rather than overlaid, and the selvedges and kilim ends in the corner photograph are neat and original. If you are weighing this against a Persian city weave, our guide to Persian rugs versus Oriental rugs explains exactly where the two traditions differ, and you can compare it with the rest of our hand-knotted Oriental rugs. Condition is new and perfect, never used, with full pile throughout.