9'5" x 12' Persian Tabriz Rug | Berry Red Floral Medallion | 1980s Wool Pile

This is a workshop Tabriz from the 1980s, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and still in excellent, perfect condition with an even, full pile from end to end. At 9'5" x 12' it covers a standard room without crowding it, which is exactly why 9x12 Persian rugs remain the most requested size we import. The berry red field carries a small ivory and navy medallion, the drawing is fine and curvilinear throughout, and the wool has the light, slightly waxy sheen that comes from four decades of settling rather than from any finishing treatment. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Tabriz formula handled with an unusually busy hand. A compact 8 lobed medallion sits at center, ivory cored with a rose rosette at its heart, ringed by a deep navy outline and finished top and bottom with slender pendants. Around it the field is filled edge to edge with scrolling vines, split palmettes, strings of small rosettes and feathery serrated leaves, none of it repeating mechanically, so the eye keeps finding new small incidents. The 4 corner spandrels are drawn as large arabesque cartouches and carry the most delicate work in the rug. The main border runs a navy ground with alternating flowering vases and palmettes, framed by several narrow guard stripes of rosettes and reciprocal trefoils, and the outer edge is finished in red with clean ivory cotton fringe at both ends.

Berry Red, Navy and Soft Blue-Green

The field is a true berry red, deeper and cooler than a tomato or brick red, with enough blue in it to sit comfortably beside grey, charcoal and walnut furniture. Against that ground the vinework is worked in ivory, straw, sage green and dusty rose, with small flashes of clear light blue in the flower heads that lift the whole surface. The 4 spandrels break the red completely with a soft blue-green, almost celadon, which is the single most distinctive color decision in this rug and the reason it photographs cooler than most red Tabriz weavings. The main border is a very dark navy that reads nearly black in low light, printing the pale palmettes and rose blossoms sharply against it, while the guard stripes carry ivory and salmon. Lighting changes the reading noticeably: in the flat overhead photos the red is bright and saturated, and in raking light it settles toward wine.

Tabriz Weaving and Workshop Quality

Tabriz sits in the far northwest of Persia and has been the country's most organized weaving city for centuries, working to the Raj system, where knot count is measured across a gereh of roughly 2.75 inches. What separates a Tabriz workshop piece from village work is the drawing: curved lines that stay curved, vines that close cleanly where they meet, and spandrels whose 4 corners mirror each other accurately over a 12 foot length. That control is visible here in the medallion outline and in the border repeat, which holds its rhythm along both long sides. The weave is tight and flat on a cotton foundation, the wool is dense and short cropped so the pattern stays legible, and the sides and ends are original and sound. Forty years on, this piece has a settled, slightly softened palette that a new rug simply cannot fake.