9'8" x 12'10" Persian Tabriz Rug | Rose Pink Floral Medallion | Wool & Silk, Approx. 323-387 KPSI

Pink fields are uncommon in Tabriz weaving at this scale, and this 9'8" x 12'10" piece shows why the good workshops attempt them so rarely: the ground has to be even across almost 125 square feet, and any drift in the dye lot would show instantly. Here it holds, a soft rose that carries a mauve cast where the silk catches the light. The pile is virgin wool lifted with silk over a cotton foundation, knotted at roughly 323 to 387 knots per square inch, which is 50 Raj work and fine enough to draw a curved vine without breaking the line. Condition is excellent, the pile full and the ends and selvages sound, and the rug ships with a certificate of authenticity. It is a true room-size piece that sits squarely in the 10x13 Persian rugs class.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a layered navy medallion built out from a red core, and inside that core sits an 8 petal rosette ringed by ivory palmette cups. Around it the navy ground breaks into pointed lobes and hooked leaf tips, so the medallion reads as a starburst rather than a solid disc. Slim pendants rise and fall from the top and bottom axis, each one a small palmette on a stem. The 4 corners carry ivory spandrels filled with scrolling vine, and between them the entire field is packed with an allover lattice of tiny palmettes, curled saz leaves, rosettes and blossom sprays, all drawn small enough that no two square inches repeat at a glance. The main border runs navy with shield shaped ivory cartouches and split leaf arabesques, flanked by pale blue floret guards and an ivory secondary band of rosettes on a thin vine.

A Rose Pink Field Against Deep Navy

The field is a warm rose pink that shifts toward mauve and dusty purple depending on the angle you view it from, and the silk highlights are what make it move. Framing it is a near black navy border, the darkest note in the rug, which pushes the pink forward and keeps a large floor from going soft. Ivory does the mediating work: cream spandrels, cream cartouches in the border, and a pale ivory guard stripe that outlines every band. The small color, scattered through the field and the border flowers, runs tomato red, deep burgundy, sage and pine green, sky blue, saffron gold and touches of pale lilac. The selvage and the low edge finish are rose, and the fringe is ivory. If your palette leans toward pink and purple Persian rugs, this is an unusually disciplined example of the family.

Tabriz: The Town and the Weave

Tabriz sits in the northwest corner of Persia, close to the Turkish frontier and on the old Silk Road trade route, and it has been one of the two or three most important weaving cities in the country for centuries. Fineness there is measured in Raj, the count of knots across a gereh of about 2.75 inches: 40 Raj is commercial goods, 50 Raj is genuinely fine city work, and 60 Raj and up is collector territory. This rug is a 50 Raj weave, which at approximately 323 to 387 knots per square inch is exactly the density needed to hold the curved arabesque drawing Tabriz is known for. The cotton warp and weft give it a flat, disciplined body, the pile stands at roughly 5 to 7 mm, and the back reads tight and regular from edge to edge.