| Size in ft: | Width: 11' x Length: 30' |
| Size in Inch: | Width: 132" x Length: 360" |
| Size in meters: | Length: 9.14 x Width: 3.35 m |
| Colors: | Navy Blue, Gold, Ivory, Teal Green, Sage |
| Shape: | Runner |
| Woven: | 100% Hand-knotted | Handmade |
| Foundation: | Cotton |
| Pile: | 100% Wool |
| Age: | 1950's | Mid-century |
| Design: | French Plain | Open Field | Floral Vine Border |
| Origin: | French | Made in Europe |
| Condition: | Excellent | Even pile throughout |
11' x 30' French Gallery Rug | Plain Navy Field with Gold Floral Border | 1950s
At 11' x 30' this is a gallery piece in the literal sense, a hand-knotted wool rug made for a room most rugs never get near: a long formal hall, a banquet room, a ballroom, the full run of a library. The whole composition rests on one decision, which is to leave the field completely open in deep navy and push every bit of drawing out to a single wide floral border. It dates to the 1950s, the pile is even from end to end, and it comes with a certificate of authenticity. Genuinely hand-knotted pieces that clear 20 feet in length are rare on any market, and you can see how thin that field is across our oversize rugs.
Please Note About the Photographs:
The lighter and darker patches you see across the open navy field are the wool taking light in different directions, not wear, not fading and not damage. A plain field shows this far more than a patterned one, and the effect shifts as you walk around the rug. A piece 30 feet long is also stored rolled, so the slight ripples visible in the photographs relax once it is laid flat. Every rug is professionally steamed and pressed before it ships.
Design and Motifs
The field carries no medallion, no corner spandrels and no repeating motif, just an unbroken plain expanse of navy running the full 30 feet. All the ornament sits in one generous main border, where a continuous gold vine scrolls from end to end and throws off 8 petal rosettes and broad star flowers in ivory and saffron, each one centered with a small navy or gold eye. Between the blossoms sit curling leaves and buds in sage and teal, drawn with soft rounded outlines rather than the angular village line you find in tribal weaving. Thin gold and ivory guard stripes edge the border on both sides and hold it against the dark field. The weaver resolved the pattern cleanly at all 4 corners, turning the vine rather than cutting it, which is the detail that separates a properly cartooned commission from a quick copy.
A Field of Deep Navy and Gold
The field reads as a saturated midnight navy in low light and opens into a clearer marine blue where the pile leans toward the window, so the color is never flat across that much open ground. Gentle tonal movement runs the length of the rug, giving the field the look of watered silk under a lamp. Against it the border colors are deliberately warm: a strong saffron gold in the vine and the larger blossoms, cream to ivory in the petals, and muted sage and teal green in the leafwork, all held on a darker blue green ground that shades almost to black at the outer edge. Small navy centers inside the flowers tie the border back to the field. If you are working a dark, jewel toned scheme, this sits with our navy blue rugs at the deepest end of the range.
European Weaving in the French Tradition
This is European work in the French salon manner, the tradition that gave us the open colored field framed by a single botanical border rather than the dense all over patterning of the East. The piece dates to the 1950s, a period when European workshops were still taking hand-knotted commissions for hotels, clubs and private houses that needed a floor covering cut to the room rather than the room cut to the rug. A loom set 11 feet wide and warped to run 30 feet is not a stock loom, so this was almost certainly built for a specific hall. The construction is wool pile on a cotton foundation, with a firm handle, a canvas tape finish along the ends visible in the close-up, and enough pile left to keep the field looking full. Hand-knotted European rugs at this length seldom come to market, and fewer still in this condition.
