9' x 11'10" Chobi Peshawar Rug | Black All Over Floral Field, Ivory Border | Excellent Condition

A black ground is the hardest thing to pull off in a hand-knotted rug, because every stem and every petal has to be drawn cleanly enough to read against it. This 9' x 11'10" Chobi Peshawar does exactly that: a deep, near-charcoal black field carrying a full all over floral system in wheat gold, salmon and sage, wrapped by a wide ivory border. It is a true Oriental rug, hand-knotted on a cotton foundation with a dense hand-spun wool pile, and the close photographs show the pile still standing crisp with no crushing, shedding or pile loss anywhere. Condition is excellent and never used. The rug ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is 100% hand-knotted, along with its exact measurements and materials.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. Instead the weaver ran an all over floral design across the whole field, built on a lattice of thin arabesque vines that loop, cross and double back on themselves. Anchored to that lattice are large 8 petal rosettes and star palmettes, smaller wheel rosettes with dark centers, curled serrated leaves and split cloud-band scrolls that fill the spaces between blossoms. The drawing repeats in mirrored pairs up the length of the rug, so the eye keeps finding symmetry without the pattern ever going flat. The main border is a wide ivory band of alternating lotus palmettes and shield-shaped flower heads joined by leafy stems, and it is framed on both sides by gold guard stripes carrying a running chain of tiny cross-form rosettes. A narrow dark selvage edge and clean ivory fringe finish both ends.

Color Palette

The field reads as a soft, slightly warm black rather than a hard printed black, with the wool's natural luster shifting the tone as the light moves across it. Against it the palette is deliberately muted: wheat and honey gold on the larger palmettes, a dusty salmon coral on the rosette petals and small flower heads, and a gray-leaning sage green on the leaves and a handful of border cartouches. Ivory and cream appear as outlining on the vines and as the ground of the wide border, which lifts the whole design and keeps the black from feeling heavy. Chocolate brown outlines the outer edge and picks out the centers of the smaller flowers. The result is a rug that works with warm neutrals, camel and cream upholstery, walnut and oak flooring, and reads dramatic in a lighter room without dominating it.

Peshawar Weaving and Quality

Peshawar, in northwest Pakistan, is one of the great modern centers of hand-knotted weaving, and the Chobi group is its best-known output. The name comes from the word for wood, a reference to the plant and vegetable dye tradition these workshops revived, and the designs draw on the old Ziegler and Mahal floral vocabulary rather than on tight urban court drawing. What you get is a room-size rug with generous, open floral movement and hand-spun wool that takes dye unevenly in the best way, giving the field its depth. The back photograph shows a tight, even knot line with straight rows and no bowing, which is why the rug lies flat without a pad fighting it. At 9' x 11'10" it sits squarely in the 9x12 class, so it will float a sofa and two chairs or run under a 6 to 8 seat dining table; browse other 9x12 hand-knotted rugs if you are comparing options in this size.