9'7" x 10' Persian Tabriz Rug | Square Wool & Silk on Silk Foundation | 70 Raj, Never Used

A 9'7" x 10' Tabriz woven at 70 Raj, with a wool and silk pile knotted onto a full silk foundation, is a workshop commission rather than a production piece. The near square format is the first tell: a loom dressed this wide takes far longer to pay for itself, so weavers only use one when the design demands perfect radial symmetry, as this dome medallion does. The pile has never been walked on, the ivory ground is clean and bright, and the silk-highlighted passages still stand up with the sheen they left the loom with. A woven cartouche sits in the end panel above the fringe. Every rug we sell ships with our certificate of authenticity, and this is one of the very few genuinely square Persian rugs we see at this level of fineness.

Design and Motifs

The center is a Gonbad, or dome, medallion: ring after ring of lobed cartouches and small rosettes stepping outward into a many-pointed star, exactly the way the ceiling of a domed hall reads when you stand under it and look straight up. The same drawing repeats as quarter medallions in all 4 corners of the field, which is what makes the square format work visually. Between them the ivory ground is filled edge to edge with a fine scrolling vine, small palmettes, blossoms and curling leaves, none of it repeated mechanically. A narrow floral guard separates the field from a navy main border carrying alternating ivory and mocha cartouches, each holding its own miniature bouquet, and camel outer bands close the composition. At 70 Raj the drawing stays curvilinear right down to the smallest stem, which is the whole point of weaving this pattern at this count.

Ivory Ground With Mocha, Navy and Green

The field is a warm ivory, closer to fresh cream than white, and the silk in the pile makes it shift from pale gold to near platinum as you cross the room. Over it the vinework is drawn in soft sage and leaf green, pale sky blue, rose pink and faint gold, so from standing height the field reads as one luminous surface with color only resolving when you look down at it. The medallion and the corner quarters are worked in mocha brown and taupe, outlined in deep navy and burgundy, with pockets of true cobalt blue, emerald green and saffron inside the small lobes. The main border is a dark ink navy that frames everything and gives the ivory its lift, and the camel and cinnamon guard stripes soften the transition out to the ivory kilim ends. Blue, green and burgundy do the accent work here; ivory and brown carry the room.

Tabriz Origin and Weaving Quality

Tabriz sits in northwest Persia and has been the country's design capital for centuries, the place where cartoon drawing, dyeing and master weaving were organized into workshops rather than left to village habit. Tabriz counts fineness in Raj, the number of knots across one gereh of roughly 2.75 inches: 40 Raj is commercial, 50 is fine, 60 Raj is collector grade at about 400 knots per square inch, and 70 Raj, at roughly 600 to 700, is the ceiling that only the best ateliers attempt. That density is only possible on a silk foundation, because silk warps are thin enough to pack the knots this tightly and strong enough to hold the tension over a 10 foot width. Compare it against other Persian Tabriz rugs and the difference shows first in the curve of a single vine, then in how flat and true the rug lies on the floor.