9'8" x 13'4" Persian Tabriz Rug | Ivory Wool & Silk on Silk Foundation | 70 Raj | Never Used

Laid out flat, this 9'8" x 13'4" Tabriz reads like a page from an illuminated manuscript: an ivory ground carried corner to corner by hair thin vine scroll, a coral and cobalt medallion set dead center, and a matching pendant reaching toward each end. It was woven in the 2000s at 70 Raj, wool pile with silk worked through the outlines and highlights, knotted on a silk warp and weft that lets the drawing stay this precise at room size. The rug has never been on a floor. The pile stands at full height, the sides and ends are original, the fringe is hand tied, and one end kilim carries a small woven cartouche. It ships with our certificate of authenticity. If you are shopping a standard large living or dining footprint, compare it against the rest of our 10x13 Persian rugs.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a 16 lobe star medallion built in tiers: a small rosette core, a ring of coral palmettes, then a serrated crown of cobalt cartouches each filled with its own rosette. Above and below it, tall coral pendants hang on fine stems. The rest of the field is one continuous lattice of scrolling vine, so light it almost disappears from a standing height, hung with 8 petal rosettes, tiny paisley leaves, turquoise cloud fragments and open roses no wider than a thumbnail. Each of the 4 corners carries a large floral cornerpiece that mirrors the medallion in quarter form, which is the classic Tabriz way of closing a field. The border system runs 5 bands deep: a cobalt inner band of flowering vine, a wide coral main border set with ivory lobed cartouches and rosette clusters, a tan guard stripe with rust cartouches, and narrow rust minor stripes on either side of it.

Ivory Ground, Coral Medallion, Cobalt Depth

The field is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than white, and it is what makes this piece feel bright in a room with limited daylight. Everything else is drawn on top of it in soft, chalky tones: a dusty coral that carries the medallion, the pendants, the cornerpieces and the main border; a deep cobalt blue for the inner border band and for the crown of the medallion, which is the only real weight of dark color in the whole rug; sage and olive green in the leaves that ride the vine; and clear turquoise flicked through the small blossoms, where the silk sits and catches light. Rose pink, rust brown and small touches of gold fill the flower heads. Because the highlight yarns are silk and the ground yarns are wool, the palette shifts as you walk around the rug: the coral looks pink from one end and almost terracotta from the other, and the turquoise turns on and off like small lights.

Tabriz Weaving and the 70 Raj Standard

Tabriz sits in the northwest of Persia and has been the country's design capital for centuries, the place where the curved line and the flowing vine were codified. Tabriz weavers measure fineness in Raj, the number of knots counted across one gereh, roughly 2.75 inches of width. 40 Raj is ordinary commercial goods and 50 Raj is already fine; 60 Raj is collector grade, and 70 Raj is the ceiling of what the best ateliers will even attempt, because at that density every millimeter of the cartoon has to be right and a single misread row shows across the entire field. That density is only possible on a silk foundation, where the thin warps let the weaver pack in more knots per inch, and it is the same silk used for the highlights that gives this rug the sheen you see in Persian silk rugs. The reverse, shown against the ruler, is as legible as the front, which is the simplest proof of a workshop weave of this grade.