9'9" x 13'4" Persian Tabriz Rug | Ivory Field Animal & Bird Medallion | 60 Raj Approx. 400 KPSI

A workshop Tabriz of this drawing quality does not turn up often at 9'9" x 13'4", a footprint that sits right in the heart of the 10x13 Persian rug range and covers a full seating group without crowding the walls. The pile is fine wool clipped low over a cotton foundation, knotted at roughly 60 Raj, which puts it around 400 knots per square inch. You can see what that buys in the close-ups: gazelles and songbirds drawn with clean outlines, curved vine that never breaks, and tiny highlights held in single knots. The field is a pale ivory carrying a warm golden tone, framed by deep green spandrels and a wide rust brown border, and the condition is perfect. It ships with our certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

At the center sits a round lobed medallion built outward from an 8 petal rosette, layered with palmettes and leafwork and finished top and bottom with long pendant finials. Around it the ivory field is filled with scrolling arabesque vine, large Shah Abbas palmettes, serrated saz leaves and small rosettes, and woven into that vinery is a living menagerie: pairs of gazelles and deer, standing peacocks, pheasants and small perched birds, each one facing its mirror partner across the center axis. The 4 corners carry deep green spandrels drawn with their own star rosettes and cloud scrolls, so the ivory ground reads as a framed panel rather than an open plain. The main border alternates shield shaped cartouches with pale blue and ivory medallions on rust brown, and is fenced on both sides by narrow green guard stripes of running flower heads. It is the classic Tabriz medallion and animal formula, executed with the symmetry that only a cartoon drawn on graph paper allows.

The Color Palette: Golden Ivory, Forest Green and Rust

The ground is ivory with a soft golden cast, closer to pale straw than to white, and it changes with the light through the day, going creamier in the morning and warmer under lamplight. Against it the greens do the heavy lifting: forest green in the spandrels and guard borders, olive and moss in the leaves, and a cooler sea green in the outer stripe seen along the fringe end. The wide border is rust brown, warm rather than orange, and it is what keeps such a light field from floating. Detail work adds crimson and wine red in the rosettes, sky blue and soft teal in the bird bodies and flower petals, navy used sparingly as an outline color, and chalk ivory picked out on the leaf tips and cartouche centers. The medallion itself shifts toward a dusty rose and camel tone, which lifts it out of the field without shouting. It is a quiet, layered palette that suits rooms in cream, sage, walnut and antique brass.

Tabriz Origin and Weaving Quality

Tabriz sits in the northwest corner of Persia and has been the country's commercial and design capital for rugs for centuries, the place where the cartoon based workshop system was refined and where fineness is still measured in Raj, the count of knots per gereh across the width. A 40 Raj Tabriz is a commercial rug; 50 is fine; 60 Raj, where this piece sits at roughly 400 knots per square inch, is collector territory and the level at which curved vine, animal figures and single knot highlights can actually be drawn instead of approximated. The weave detail photo shows the payoff, with border stripes only a few centimeters wide holding complete flower heads. Warps are cotton, which keeps a rug this size square and flat on the floor, while the low clipped wool pile takes traffic well and holds the drawing sharp rather than blurring it. Turn to the reverse and the knot nodes sit in tight, even rows, the mark of one workshop and a consistent hand across nearly 13 feet of weaving.