9' x 11'7" Transitional Agra Design Rug | Taupe Field with Black Border | New, Never Used

This is a brand new, never used, hand-knotted wool rug woven in Pakistan in the Agra tradition, and at 9' x 11'7" it covers a standard 9x12 Oriental rug footprint with a few inches to spare in length. It is a quiet, decorator-friendly piece: a soft taupe field drawn with widely spaced flowers, framed by a deep black main border full of ivory scrollwork. The wool has a low, even shear and a gentle sheen that reads almost like a washed antique in raking light, which is exactly what this style of Oriental rug is made to do. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is 100% hand-knotted.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. Instead the weaver worked an all-over floral design across the open taupe ground: lobed shield cartouches outlined in black, fan shaped palmettes, 8 petal rosettes, small pendant blossoms and thin leaf sprays, all placed with a lot of air between them. The spacing is the point, since it keeps a room this size from feeling busy. The black main border carries a continuous serpentine vine with large ivory palmette cartouches set at the centers and corners of each side, and the corners resolve cleanly rather than being cut off mid motif. Two narrow taupe guard stripes, ticked with tiny rosettes and black commas, separate the border from the field and from the finished selvage.

A Taupe Field Against an Inky Black Border

The field sits between taupe and warm camel, closer to wet sand than to grey, with faint tonal banding that shifts a shade lighter or deeper as you walk around it. Motifs are drawn in honey gold and pale ivory, then lifted with small hits of soft rose, raspberry red and muted sage green, and finished with fine charcoal outlines that give the flowers their shape. The main border is a dense inky black with brown undertones in the pile, dark enough to frame the room and to anchor the pale field without going cold. The outer edge returns to taupe, and the fringe ends are a clean natural ivory. In practice this palette lives happily with walnut and oak floors, cream upholstery, brass and black metal.

Woven in Pakistan in the Agra Tradition

Agra drawing comes out of the Mughal court workshops of northern India, and Pakistani weaving centers have carried that vocabulary forward for generations, which is why pieces like this one are described by design rather than by a Persian town. The quality is in the hands: wool pile knotted on a cotton foundation, with a back that photographs tight and regular and corners that stay square, so the rug lies flat the first day it is unrolled. Pakistan, alongside India, is where most of the world's good contemporary hand-knotted work is now produced, and this rug is a fair example of it, sheared low so the curved vine and the fine outlines stay legible underfoot.