9'9" x 13'3" Persian Tabriz Rug | Red Field, Navy Floral Medallion | Semi-Antique, Excellent Condition

This is a room-size Persian Tabriz in the classic workshop formula: a deep red field, a navy lobed medallion drawn with real care, and 5 borders that frame the whole thing without crowding it. At 9'9" x 13'3" it covers a 12 x 15 room comfortably with furniture set on top, and it sits right in the heart of the 10x13 Persian rugs range that most dining and living rooms need. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, still full and even edge to edge, with original selvedges and clean ivory fringe at both ends. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted and made in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a round, scalloped medallion with an 8 petal rosette core, ringed by an ivory pearl outline and set inside a stepped navy cartouche that pushes out into 4 lobed arms toward the corners. Four navy spandrels close the field with matching lobed drawing, so the layout reads symmetrical from any side of the room. Across the open red ground the weaver ran a dense all over tracery of curved vines, palmettes, serrated leaves and small paisley forms, each flower head outlined in ivory so it lifts off the red instead of sinking into it. The main border is a wide navy band of alternating palmettes and leaf cartouches, flanked by salmon minor borders of small rosettes on a meandering vine, with narrow ivory guard stripes separating every band. Look at the corners in the close-up: the border turn resolves cleanly rather than being cut off mid-motif, which is the mark of a drawn cartoon followed properly.

A Red Field With Navy, Salmon and Ivory Drawing

Red is the engine of this rug, a warm madder-toned red that shifts between brick and rose depending on how the light hits the wool, and it is exactly the tone people look for in red and burgundy Persian rugs. Against it the medallion, spandrels and main border go nearly black-navy, giving the composition weight at the center and a firm frame at the perimeter. The secondary borders are a soft salmon, almost terracotta, and that warm band is what keeps the navy from feeling heavy. Inside the motifs the palette opens up: rose pink, ivory, pale blue, soft teal, a little mustard gold, deep aubergine and small flashes of forest green in the leaf tips and the border palmettes. Nothing shouts. The ivory outlining does the organizing work, and the overall effect in a room is warm and formal rather than bright, which makes it easy to live with next to dark wood, brass and cream upholstery.

Tabriz Weaving in Northwest Persia

Tabriz sits in northwest Persia and has been the country's most organized weaving city for centuries, working from drawn cartoons in workshop settings rather than from memory. That system is why Tabriz pieces like this one hold their symmetry across more than 13 feet of length and why the curved vine work stays fluid instead of going angular. Tabriz weavers also use a steel hook and a tight, firm beat-down, so the back is flat and even and the rug lies dead flat on the floor from day one. The wool here is springy and lustrous with a 3/8" clip, short enough to keep the drawing crisp and long enough to take decades of traffic in a dining room or main living space. With full pile, intact ends and sides, and no repairs, this is a semi-antique piece you buy to use rather than to baby.