9' x 12' Indian Oriental Rug | All Over Burgundy Floral | 200 KPSI Fine Wool, Never Used

This is a full room size piece, 108" by 144" of hand-knotted fine wool on a cotton foundation, woven at approximately 200 knots per square inch. The drawing is a traditional all over floral composition with no central medallion, so the pattern reads evenly under furniture instead of fighting a sofa or a dining table for the middle of the room. The pile is dense and low cut, which is exactly what you want in a 9 by 12: it holds its shape, it takes traffic, and the pattern stays crisp. It has never been used and comes to you brand new, with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted piece made in India. If you are shopping the 9 x 12 rug size for a formal room, this one does the traditional look without going dark or heavy.

Design and Motifs

The field is covered edge to edge with a mirrored lattice of thin scrolling vines that rise from the lower border and repeat up the length of the rug. Sitting on that framework are large open rosettes and lobed palmettes, some drawn as tight 8 petal blossoms and others opened out into fan shaped flower heads, with serrated lanceolate leaves, small tulip buds and tiny 4 petal florets filling the ground between them. The main border is a wide black band carrying its own vine, alternating big cabbage rose forms with leaf clusters and small trefoil crowns, and it is fenced on both sides by narrow guard stripes of running blossom and a beaded meander. Beyond that sits a broad camel gold outer border of paired palmettes and stylised flower heads, which is what gives the rug its finished, framed look in the overhead photos. The corners resolve cleanly, the two ends of the field mirror each other, and the border repeat turns properly at all 4 corners rather than being cut off, which is a sign of a workshop cartoon drawn for this exact size.

Colors: Deep Burgundy Framed in Black and Gold

The ground is a deep burgundy, closer to wine and oxblood than to a bright red, and because the wool takes the dye with a slight sheen it shifts between plum and dark cherry depending on where you stand. Against it the vinework is drawn in light brown and camel, the larger blossoms in gold, apricot and a soft salmon, and the leaves in a muted sage and olive green that keeps the palette from turning purely warm. Beige and near ivory highlights pick out the edges of the palmettes and give the field its depth. The main border is a true black, which makes a hard, graphic frame around all that burgundy, while the outer border is a lighter camel gold that lifts the whole rug and keeps it from reading heavy. Small notes of dark red and ink blue appear inside the flower heads in the close detail shots. Ivory cotton fringe finishes both ends. In practice this colorway is easy to build a room around: it sits well with cream walls, walnut and mahogany furniture, brass, and black accents.

Made in India: Workshop Weaving at 200 Knots

India is where most of the world's good contemporary hand-knotted work is now made, and we say that with confidence after decades of buying both sides of the market. The northern Indian weaving centres run large, disciplined workshops with proper cartoons, hand-spun and carded wool, and vegetable and controlled dye lots, and they turn out traditional drawing at a level that would have been a specialist job a generation ago. At approximately 200 knots per square inch this piece is well above the ordinary commercial grade, which is what allows the curved vines and the fine leaf tips to be drawn without stepping. The weave is tight and even across the whole 12 foot length, the selvedges are bound firmly, and the beat-down is heavy enough that the rug lies flat and dead straight on the floor. If you are weighing this against other origins, our guide to the difference between a Persian and an Oriental rug explains exactly where the two traditions separate and where they overlap.