9' x 12'6" Pakistan Oriental Rug | Esfahan Dome Design | 200 KPSI Dense Wool Weave

This 9' x 12'6" piece is a workshop-grade Oriental rug woven in Pakistan on a cotton foundation with a natural wool pile, drawn after the architectural Esfahan dome designs that master weavers copy from mosque ceilings. At roughly 200 knots per square inch the drawing holds together at a scale where most large rugs get coarse, and the pile is packed tight enough that the strapwork lines stay razor straight from one end of the field to the other. A small woven cartouche sits in the end border, the mark of the shop that made it. The rug is brand new and has never been on a floor, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming the hand-knotted construction, the wool pile and the Pakistani origin.

Design and Motifs

The centre of the rug is a near square panel filled with interlaced strapwork, the geometry of a tiled dome flattened out into wool. Ribbons of rose and ivory cross and re-cross to form a central star rosette with radiating pentagons and shield shapes, and every compartment is packed with small green arabesques, buds and leaf scrolls so that no plain ground is left anywhere. Above and below that panel sit long lobed cartouches in green on ivory, each one drawn with its own scrolling vine, the way an inscription band would sit over a mihrab. The field is framed by a brown rosette and star border, a pale green main border carrying alternating palmettes and cypress style sprays, and a plain blush outer band studded with small dark dart motifs that give the whole composition a quiet edge. The corners resolve cleanly, which on an all over geometric layout of this size is the real test of the cartoon.

A Palette of Sea Green, Gold and Blush Tan

Green carries the rug, but it is never one green. The field reads as a soft sea green over ivory, the cartouche panels deepen into a clearer sage, and the small florals and outlines drop all the way to a near black emerald that gives the pattern its definition. Running through it are warm golds and honey tones in the vine work, an antique rose that outlines the strapwork ribbons, and a muted cocoa brown in the inner border where the ivory rosettes sit. The wide outer frame is a blush tan that photographs warm under raking light and cooler from above, which is why the same border looks salmon in the angled shots and a soft biscuit in the flat view. Ivory acts as the relief colour throughout, in the chain guard stripes, the cartouche grounds and the fringe. The overall effect is faded and gentle rather than loud, so the rug sits comfortably with cream walls, walnut furniture and aged brass.

Woven in Pakistan to Esfahan Standards

Pakistan's weaving centres around Lahore and Peshawar built their reputation on reproducing classical city designs at a genuine knot count, and this rug is a good example of what that tradition does well. The design is the Esfahan dome layout, one of the most demanding cartoons a weaver can take on because a single misplaced knot breaks a strapwork line across the entire panel. The back photograph shows an even, tightly beaten weave with clear knot definition and no pulling at the sides, and the ends are finished with a flat woven kilim band and thick ivory fringe. Natural wool takes these soft greens and golds beautifully and gives a low, dense pile that will take traffic in a dining room or a large sitting room for decades. Among hand-knotted Oriental rugs in this size, a 200 knot per square inch weave with drawing this precise is the exception rather than the rule.