9' x 9' Square Chinese Rug | Black Minnici Ribbon and Rosette Design | Never Used

This is a true 9' x 9' square, hand-knotted in China in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile, and it does not look like anything else on the floor. The whole field is solid black, and floating on it is a decorative Minnici composition of ribbons, fans and rosettes drawn in the French Country manner rather than a classical Oriental one. Because the drawing is arranged symmetrically around a single center, the rug reads correctly from every side, which is exactly what a genuinely square rug needs to do. The condition is brand new and never used, the ends are hand-tied ivory cotton fringe, and every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted.

Design and Motifs

At the center sits a large rosette burst, its ribbon loops spilling out over a gold and ivory open lattice of crossed bars that are filled with small tiled blocks. That lattice repeats at each of the 4 sides of the inner panel, so the middle of the rug builds up as a squared frame inside a squared frame. Around it, along a narrow band, run swags of ribbon caught at the middle by round floral clusters and by pinwheel rosettes, with fan shaped tassels of striped and diamond patterned ribbon hanging from each corner. The borderless treatment is deliberate: instead of a running border, the design finishes with those ribbon garlands, leaving wide areas of plain black between the motifs so nothing looks crowded. Seen from an angle, the outlines of the ribbons appear lightly carved, the shallow relief that Chinese weavers use to separate one color from the next.

A Black Field Carrying Red, Blue and Teal

The ground is a deep, even black with the quiet sheen good wool gives at this pile height, and it functions as a backdrop rather than a pattern. Against it the palette is bright but controlled. The ribbons work through cerulean and mid blue into a cooler teal and sea green, and they are answered by coral red, brick red and a softer rose pink, with occasional warm peach. The lattice bars and the small tiled plaques are worked in gold, tan and honey with ivory outlines, and cream highlights pick out the petals inside the floral clusters. Small diamonds of pale blue, ivory and apricot are set along the wider ribbons, which is what keeps the motifs from reading as flat blocks of color. The overall effect is a dark, dressy rug with jewel accents, which is why the black field suits rooms with pale walls, wood tones or lacquered furniture.

Chinese Weaving and Build Quality

China has produced decorative hand-knotted work for the western market for a long time, and the strength of that tradition is exactly what you see here: clean, wide open drawing, saturated dye work, and a dense wool pile clipped level at 3/8" so the motifs stay crisp. The back photo shows straight, regular rows of knots on a cotton foundation, a tight plain weave end finish and hand-tied fringe, all signs of a carefully finished piece rather than a rushed one. It is a hand-knotted Oriental rug in the broad sense of the term, made with the same knot by knot method used in Persia, but with a decorative vocabulary of its own. At 9 feet square and brand new, it is an unusual piece for square rooms, garden rooms and square seating groups where a standard rectangle never sits right.