9' x 12' Aubusson Flat Weave Oriental Rug | Ivory and Gold Rose Medallion | Brand New

This is a hand-woven Aubusson in the true flat tapestry technique, with no pile at all: the design is built directly into the weave, so the surface reads like a painted canvas rather than a carpeted floor. At 9' x 12' it covers a full seating group or a dining table with chairs pulled back, and because the face sits almost flush with the floor it slides under doors and moves easily under chair legs, which is exactly why decorators keep reaching for this construction in 9x12. The piece is brand new and never used, woven on a cotton foundation in soft wool, with straight sides, a flat lie and clean selvedges out of the box. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine handmade Oriental rug, and you can browse the rest of our 9x12 area rugs alongside it.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the classic French Aubusson formula. A large oval cartouche sits at center, outlined in gold and filled with a loose bouquet of roses, lilies and small five petal blossoms tied with ribbon work and ivory acanthus scrolls. Around it runs a garland of open roses and buds that loops out to 4 corner reserves, each holding its own small round rose bouquet framed in carved scrollwork. Two further oval rose medallions anchor the top and bottom of the field. A fine pearl bead line and a thin gold ruling draw the inner frame, giving the field the look of a panelled ceiling, while the wide outer border repeats a continuous wave of rolling acanthus leaves with single roses set into each turn. A plain camel gold band finishes all 4 edges. Everything is drawn in curved line, with shading worked in stepped tones rather than outline, which is what separates a properly woven Aubusson from a printed imitation.

A Study in Cream, Gold and Rose

The palette is deliberately quiet. The field moves between ivory and a warm beige, with the oval medallion woven a shade paler than the surrounding ground so it lifts without a hard edge. Gold appears in three weights: a soft honey in the scrollwork, a stronger camel in the ruling lines and medallion outline, and a deeper caramel in the solid outer band. The roses carry the color, running from the palest blush through shell pink to a clear rose that reads pink at a distance and deeper at close range. Leaves and stems are worked in sage, olive and a dusty moss green, with taupe and cocoa shading giving the acanthus its carved dimension. Scattered through the bouquets are small blossoms in a soft powder blue, a tiny amount of color that keeps the whole thing from going flat. The overall effect is pale, warm and light reflective, which suits rooms with a lot of natural light and furniture in cream, walnut or gilt.

Aubusson Weaving and the Chinese Workshops

Aubusson takes its name from the town in central France where tapestry weavers supplied the courts and chateaux from the 17th century onward, producing flat woven floor pieces to match the wall tapestries and painted panels of the same rooms. The technique never disappeared; it moved. Today the best hand-woven Aubusson floor pieces come out of specialist workshops in China, where the flat tapestry weave, the cartoon based drawing and the wool dyeing have all been carried on at a high level. This example shows the marks of a careful workshop: dead straight sides, an even beat across all 108 inches of width, crisp junctions where one color meets the next, and shading built from many closely graded tones rather than a few blunt ones. Because there is no pile to crush, a flat weave of this quality holds its drawing indefinitely and cleans easily, and it weighs far less than a knotted piece of the same 9' x 12' footprint.