| Size in ft: | Width: 10'2" x Length: 20' |
| Size in Inch: | Width: 122" x Length: 240" |
| Size in meters: | Length: 6.10 x Width: 3.10 m |
| Colors: | Slate Gray, Ivory, Olive |
| Shape: | Rectangular |
| Woven: | Hand-Knotted |
| Pile: | Natural Soft Wool |
| Origin: | India |
| Design: | Soltanabad |
| Age: | New |
| Condition: | Perfect |
10'2" x 20' Soltanabad Design Rug | Slate Gray & Ivory All Over Floral | Hand-Knotted in India, Brand New
This is a room-swallowing piece, 10'2" x 20' of hand-knotted wool in a Soltanabad drawing, and it was clearly woven for a long rectangular space rather than cut down to a standard proportion. The field is a deep slate gray, the pattern is carried in ivory, olive and soft gold, and the whole thing reads calm from across the room and detailed up close. It is brand new and never used, with a full even pile and clean finished ends, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted rug. Rooms that need this length, long great rooms, double parlors, library halls and open-plan lofts, are exactly where oversize hand-knotted rugs stop being decoration and start defining the architecture.
Please Note About the Photographs:
Two of the close-up photographs were taken low and along the direction of the pile, so the ivory and olive motifs look warmer, almost bronze, than they do in the flat overhead shots. That is the natural sheen of the wool catching light, not staining, fading or wear. The faint shadow lines running across the field come from the rug resting over a roll during storage and relax once it is laid flat. Every rug is professionally steamed and pressed before it leaves us.
Design and Motifs
The Soltanabad drawing here is an all over floral design with no central medallion, which is precisely why it works at this length: the repeat simply continues for 20', so furniture can sit anywhere on it without breaking the composition. Rows of large shield palmettes and open rosettes alternate with smaller star flowers and split leaf forms, connected by thin vine scrolls that hook and turn in the stepped, slightly angular way typical of this pattern family. Look closely and you will find small hooked bracket motifs floating between the flower heads, a device the weavers use to keep the negative space from going flat. The main border runs a procession of serrated leaves and blossom clusters on the same gray ground, framed on both sides by a narrow ivory guard stripe carrying a zigzag and dot meander. Corners are resolved cleanly rather than truncated, which is a mark of careful cartoon work on a rug this wide.
A Slate Gray Field Lit by Ivory, Olive and Gold
The ground is slate gray with a distinctly blue cast, the kind of gray that sits comfortably with navy upholstery, walnut floors and cool white walls without ever reading as cold. Across it, the pattern is drawn in a layered range of ivory, buttery cream, soft gold and a muted olive that darkens to a light bronze brown in the palmette centers. Several flower heads carry a pale dove gray core, which pulls the field color up into the motifs and ties the whole surface together. There is gentle abrash through the ground, subtle horizontal shifts from a lighter pearl gray to a deeper charcoal slate, and it is the natural signature of small-lot dyed wool rather than a flaw. In daylight the rug leans silver and cool; under warm lamplight the olive and gold come forward and the field settles toward graphite.
Woven in India in the Soltanabad Tradition
This rug was hand-knotted in India, which is where most of the world's best contemporary hand-knotted work is now produced, and the weaving standard on a piece like this is genuinely high. The reverse shows a tight, even knot grid with no drawn-in rows or skipped picks, the sign of an experienced team keeping tension consistent across a loom over 10' wide for the many months a 20' rug demands. The pile is natural soft wool on a cotton foundation, clipped to a medium height that holds the outline of each palmette crisply, and the selvages and fringe ends are hand finished. Anyone weighing this against a machine-made piece should read our guide on what separates a true Oriental rug from a factory reproduction, because at this scale the difference in how the floor feels underfoot is immediate.
