9'9" x 13'9" Chinese Tabriz Rug | Wool and Silk | Black and Ivory

A 9'9" x 13'9" rectangular carpet knotted by hand in China, worked to a Tabriz drawing with a pile of wool and silk. At a glance it reads as a deep black field carrying a single round medallion, enclosed by a broad pale border. Up close the field is not empty anywhere: the ground is covered edge to edge in small flowering vines, and the drawing is fine enough that the individual roses and buds hold their shape.

Design

The centre is a round medallion built in rings, an eight-lobed rosette at the core, then a plain tan disc, then a ring of scrolling leafwork, then a crown of burgundy petals reaching outward. Pendants of the same construction run off the top and bottom of the medallion toward the ends of the rug. Around all of this the field is shaped like a large lobed cartouche, so the four corners are given over to tan-gold spandrels drawn with their own palmettes and vine. The main border is a turning vine of palmettes, tulip-like blossoms and rosettes on a pale ground, set between narrow guard stripes, one of them a thin burgundy band carrying small flower heads. The ends finish in plain white cotton fringe.

Colour

The field is a flat, unbroken black that photographs almost blue in raking light, and it does the work of making everything laid over it look brighter than it is. The flowers on it are salmon, soft rose, clay pink and ivory, with stems and leaves in a dulled olive green that keeps the field from turning candy-coloured. The medallion crown and the narrow border stripes are a dark burgundy, close to oxblood. The main border and the corner spandrels sit in cream and tan, a full stop lighter than the field, which is what gives the rug its strong frame from across a room.

Making

Hand-knotted in China, with a pile of wool and silk; the silk is carried in the drawing rather than across the whole surface, which is what lifts the pale scrollwork off the black ground. The back shows a close, even weave on a cotton foundation, and the fringe is the warp left long and plain at both ends. The condition is new, and the pile stands full with no wear at the edges. It is one of the many hand-knotted rugs here drawn to a classical Persian pattern but woven somewhere else entirely.