9' x 12' Indian Oriental Rug | Kerman Medallion Design | Black Field, Ivory Border | New

This 9' x 12' rug is hand-knotted in India on a cotton foundation with a natural soft wool pile, and it is drawn in the classic Kerman manner: one commanding ivory medallion set on a wide open black field, with heavy floral corners pulling in from all 4 sides. It has never been on a floor. The pile still has its full factory height, the selvages are tight, and the ends are hand-finished with even cotton fringe, which you can see clearly in the corner and fringe photographs. As a true room-size piece it covers a standard dining set or anchors a full seating group, and it is one of the most useful proportions we stock among 9 x 12 area rugs. Every rug we ship leaves with a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is genuinely hand-knotted, along with its full specification record.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a many-lobed star medallion worked in ivory, with a small black and red rosette at its exact core, concentric rings of curling leaf and palmette, and 8 radiating points that break into detached floral sprays before they reach the open ground. Slim lance-shaped pendants run off the top and bottom of the medallion and finish in small cypress-like finials. The rest of the field is deliberately left bare so the medallion reads at a distance, a hallmark of the Kerman drawing tradition. At each of the 4 corners a heavy spandrel of full-blown roses, serrated acanthus leaves and trailing vine folds inward, framing the black ground in an oval rather than a hard angle. The border system is layered: a narrow red reciprocal outer stripe, a red palmette band, a fine light blue vine guard, then the wide ivory main border filled with bouquets, lilies and split-leaf arabesque, and finally an inner red band repeating the palmette rhythm. Every curve is drawn with a rounded, flowing line rather than the stepped geometry of village weaving.

A Black Field Framed in Ivory, Red and Light Blue

Black is the main color and it does the heavy lifting here, giving a dense, velvety ground that makes everything sitting on it look brighter than it is. Against that ground the medallion is soft ivory shading to cream and a warm pale gold at the edges of the leaves. The floral work runs in two families: cool tones of light blue, powder blue and sage to soft moss green in the leaves and small star flowers, and warm tones of rose red, deeper brick red and touches of burgundy in the roses, buds and reciprocal stripes. The main border reverses the scheme entirely, ivory ground with red and blue flowers, so the black field is outlined in light and the rug does not disappear into dark furniture or a dark wood floor. Small gold and buff accents appear in the leaf tips and in the little curling stems scattered through the border. In a room, the effect is formal and high contrast: black reads almost as a neutral, while the ivory frame keeps the whole 9' x 12' piece from feeling heavy.

Hand-Knotted in India in the Kerman Tradition

This piece was made in India, which is where the majority of the world's serious contemporary hand-knotted weaving now happens, and we say that with confidence rather than apology. Indian workshops took on the classical city cartoons decades ago and today produce them at a level of drawing and finishing that stands on its own, which is exactly the point covered in our guide to what separates a Persian rug from an Oriental rug. Kerman here describes the design rather than the place: the open field, the single radiant medallion, the rose-laden spandrels and the flowering ivory border all come from that vocabulary. The weave itself is even and disciplined, knot rows lie straight across the back, the wool is a soft natural quality that takes dye cleanly and holds a deep black without going flat, and the cotton warps keep the rug square and stable under a heavy dining table. It arrives in perfect, never-used condition.