9'5" x 13'2" Persian Ardebil Rug | Ivory All Over Floral Design | Excellent Never Used Condition

This is one of those Ardebils that does the hard thing: it fills 13 feet of length with pattern and still reads calm. The field is a pale ivory wool that has taken dye only where the drawing calls for it, so the sky blue palmettes, navy rosettes and olive grey leaves sit on an open ground instead of fighting each other. It measures 9'5" x 13'2", a true room size for a 12 by 14 or larger space, with a 3/8" wool pile on a cotton foundation and a full, even surface that has never been under furniture. Condition is excellent and the rug has never been used. It ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming the hand-knotted construction, the wool pile and the Persian origin.

Design and Motifs

The field is drawn as a true all over design with no central medallion. A thin brown vine runs the length of the rug in angular hooks and right angle turns, and off that armature hang four repeating motif types: broad serrated palmettes in sky blue with navy and ivory hearts, flat 8 petal rosettes in grey green, lobed ivory cartouche blossoms with dark navy centers, and the stiff comb like leaf sprays that give Ardebil drawing its backbone. Small single stem buds fill the gaps so almost nothing is left empty, yet the spacing stays regular enough that the eye reads rows rather than clutter. The surround is a 5 band border system: a wide ivory main band of alternating navy star rosettes and pale arabesque leaves, framed by reciprocal sky blue guard stripes and two narrow brown and taupe meander bands. All 4 corners resolve cleanly, which is the first thing to check on a village workshop piece this size.

A Study in Ivory, Sky Blue and Olive Grey

The ground is a warm ivory that shifts toward soft cream and oatmeal as the light moves across the pile, and against it the weaver worked a deliberately cool secondary palette. Two distinct blues are in play: a chalky sky blue that carries most of the palmettes and the guard stripes, and a deep inky navy used sparingly for rosette centers, leaf tips and the large star rosettes of the main border, where it does the work of outlining the whole composition. Between them sits the grey olive noted in the specs, a dusty sage that colors many of the rosettes and leaf sprays and keeps the blues from looking decorative. Taupe, soft rose beige and a few touches of oxidized brown and brick appear in the flower hearts and vine work. The overall effect belongs with other ivory and beige Persian rugs, light enough for pale oak or limestone floors and quiet enough to live under upholstery in grey, cream or indigo.

Ardebil Weaving in Northwest Persia

Ardebil sits in the far northwest of Persia, high cold country near the Azerbaijan frontier where the winters are long and the local sheep grow a coarse, resilient fleece. That wool is the whole argument for an Ardebil: it takes a slightly matte, chalky dye rather than a glossy one, and it wears for generations under traffic because the fiber has body. The drawing tradition here is angular rather than curvilinear, with straight runs, stepped outlines and motifs built from clear geometry, and weavers work it in room sizes like this one because Ardebil houses and the export trade both wanted long pieces. On this rug the knotting is firm and consistent across all 113 inches of width, the selvages are tight and original, and the pile has been clipped at an even 3/8" so the pattern stays crisp. Among larger Persian rugs in this size class, an Ardebil in untouched condition with a light field is the harder one to find, because pale grounds were never the safe commercial choice.