9'5" x 13'3" Agra Design Rug | Ivory Field, Rust Red Floral Border | Hand-Knotted in India, Brand New

This 9'5" x 13'3" Agra design rug is hand-knotted in India with a 3/8" wool pile on a cotton foundation, and it has never been on a floor. The drawing is the classic Agra formula: a quiet ivory ground carrying a connected floral lattice, framed by a wide brick red border and flanked by narrow sage guard stripes. It is a true room size piece, the kind of proportion that sits under a full seating group or a 10 seat table, which puts it squarely in the practical range of large area rugs. As a hand-knotted Oriental rug it ships with our certificate of authenticity, which records the size, weave, materials and origin exactly as they appear in the table above, along with the original mill label photographed on the reverse.

Design and Motifs

The field is an all over floral design rather than a single medallion layout, built around a central 20 ray rosette with two large lobed palmettes set above and below it on the long axis, and a matching pair on the short axis. Slender vines swing out from each blossom in long curved arcs, carrying serrated bent leaves, small 6 petal flower heads, tulip forms and tight buds, with a large shield palmette anchoring each of the 4 corners. The main border runs a steady alternation of a broad leaf palmette and an upright candelabra flower with 8 petal rosettes dropped between them, so the rhythm reads clearly even from across a room. Inner and outer guard stripes carry a small repeating block and cross motif, and the whole composition is closed by a plain ivory selvage edge with hand-tied fringe at both ends, visible in the corner photograph.

Ivory Ground, Brick Red Border and the Palette Between

The ground is a warm oatmeal ivory, closer to raw wool than to bleached white, which is why the pale sage and camel vines sit on it so gently instead of jumping forward. Against that, the main border is a soft brick red with a faint horizontal variation in tone across its width, the natural shading of a hand-dyed wool batch rather than a flaw. The flower heads are worked in clay pink, dusty rose, camel gold, olive and a greyed teal blue, with small touches of charcoal in the leaf tips and ivory highlights in the palmette centers, so the overall effect is low contrast and easy to live with. The guard stripes are a light sage green that acts as a cool break between the ivory and the red, and the close-up photograph shows how many of these shades are blended within a single blossom.

Made in India: The Agra Tradition and the Quality of the Weave

Agra, in northern India, has been a weaving center since the Mughal court workshops, and its drawing vocabulary of scrolling vine, lobed palmette and open light ground is what this rug reproduces. India is where most of the world's good contemporary hand-knotted work is now made, and this piece shows why: the knotting is even, the vine lines stay fluid through their full curve, the border rhythm holds true around all 4 sides, and the 3/8" wool pile is dense enough to stand up to a dining table and chairs. The original mill label stitched to the reverse is photographed in the gallery and reads "Hand Knotted in India, 100% Wool Pile" with a quality notation of 6/70 and a colour listing of ivory and rust, which matches what the rug shows on the floor. It is brand new, never used, and ready to go straight into a room.