9' x 12' Chinese Oriental Rug | French Savonnerie Floral Medallion | Wool and Silk, Never Used

This is a fine quality hand-knotted Oriental rug woven in China to a French court pattern, measuring 9' x 12' with a jet black field, a wine red border and a wool and silk pile that shifts in the light as you walk past it. The piece is brand new and never used, with a full even pile, straight sides, tightly packed knots and hand-tied ivory cotton fringe at both ends, exactly as shown in the close-up photographs. Weight and body are substantial for a rug this size, and the silk passes sit in the roses, leaf tips and medallion cartouche where the drawing needs to catch light. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is genuinely hand-knotted, along with its size, materials and origin.

Design and Motifs

The layout follows the French Savonnerie formula rather than a village geometric one: a large round medallion at center, two smaller satellite rosettes above and below on the long axis, and four quarter-round bracket corners that cut across the field like carved plaster. The medallion holds an ivory core packed with full-blown roses, campanula and small buds, ringed by a burgundy band of scattered flowers and then a collar of sage acanthus scrolls that curl outward into the black ground. The field is not open, it is filled with feathered acanthus leaves, rose sprays and curling tendrils drawn with a curved line throughout, no straight lines anywhere. The main border carries alternating rosette cartouches and rose bouquets on wine red, framed by ivory guard stripes of small blossoms and an inner black channel dotted with 4 petal flowers, visible clearly in the border close-up.

A Black Ground Read in Burgundy, Sage and Ivory

The field is a true deep black, dense and matte, which is the hardest ground to weave well because every color laid on it has to be strong enough to hold its own. Against it the palette runs through wine burgundy in the medallion band and main border, warm ivory and cream in the guard stripes and flower centers, and a soft sage green that reads almost silver in the acanthus leaves. Rose pink and coral appear through the blossoms, with rust, olive and pale slate blue used sparingly for shading and outlines, so each leaf has 3 or 4 tones rather than one flat color. Silk highlights lift the lightest passes, which is why the ivory and rose read brighter from one direction and settle back when you view the rug from the other end. For a room with dark wood, brass or deep upholstery, this is a grounding rug rather than a bright one.

Origin and Weaving Quality

Chinese workshops have specialized in fine hand-knotted reproductions of European court designs for decades, and this piece is a strong example of that tradition: a cotton foundation, a clipped low pile that lets fine drawing stay legible, and a knot count high enough to render curved acanthus and overlapping petals without the pattern breaking into steps. The back shows a tight, regular knot with clean color changes, and the selvedges are wrapped firmly in black. At 9' x 12' it is the classic room size for a sofa group with all legs on the rug or a dining table with chairs pulled back, and it sits comfortably among our other 9x12 area rugs as one of the darker, more formal options on the floor.