9' x 12' Indian Jaipur Rug | All Over Floral Design on Black | Fine Wool, Brand New

Black grounds are difficult to weave well, because every flower has to be drawn with enough contrast to read against the dark. This 9' x 12' room-size piece handles it beautifully: a jet black field filled corner to corner with flowering vinery in rust, gold, olive and soft pink, wrapped in a wide ivory main border that lifts the whole rug. It is hand-knotted in fine wool on a cotton foundation, brand new and never laid down, with a dense pile that still has its full original height and a crisp cotton fringe at both ends. Like every piece we import, it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is genuinely hand-knotted. If you are working to that classic room-size footprint, this sits squarely in our range of 9 x 12 area rugs.

Design and Motifs

The field is a true all over floral design with no central medallion, drawn in the Zigler manner but with the fuller, more botanical flower heads associated with the Indo-Agra workshops. Thin arabesque vines travel the length of the rug and branch into large round rosettes, split palmettes, serrated acanthus leaves and small 5 petal blossoms, with a pair of tall shield-shaped palmettes marking the vertical axis. The layout is mirrored left to right and repeats up the field, so the pattern reads as continuous rather than centered, which is exactly why a rug like this takes furniture well. The main ivory border carries alternating palmettes and leafy scrollwork, set between a beige vine guard on the inside and a narrow outer guard, and the corners are properly resolved so the drawing turns without a break.

A Black Field Lit by Ivory, Olive and Rust

Black is the main color and it is a deep, even, matte black that gives the rug its weight. Against it the palette is warm rather than bright: rust and terracotta in the larger flower heads, muted olive and sage green in the leaves and vines, antique gold and camel in the palmettes, and soft salmon to light pink in the smaller blossoms. Tiny points of turquoise blue and deep red sit at the flower centers, visible in the close-up photographs, and they are what keep the field from going flat. The main border shifts to ivory and soft beige, the lightest note in the rug, so the dark field is framed instead of swallowed by the room. Under lamplight the wool takes on a low sheen and the golds warm noticeably, while daylight brings out the greens.

Woven in Jaipur, India

This rug was hand-knotted in the Jaipur weaving region of India, where the best contemporary workshops have inherited the classical floral repertoire and now produce much of the world's finest new hand-knotted work. The back photograph shows the story clearly: even rows, tight knotting on a cotton foundation, and clean color changes with no blurring where one shade meets the next. The wool is a fine grade with good luster and has been cut to a medium pile that holds detail in the smaller blossoms. Buyers comparing a piece like this to older city weaving should read our guide to what separates an Oriental rug from its regional cousins, because the terms are used loosely elsewhere. Structurally this one is built to be walked on for decades, not stored away.