| Size in ft: | Width: 16' x Length: 16' |
| Size in Inch: | Width: 192" x Length: 192" |
| Size in meters: | Length: 4.88 x Width: 4.88 m |
| Colors: | Wheat Brown, Orange, Olive Green, Gold, Ivory, Blue accents |
| Shape: | Square |
| Woven: | 100% Hand-knotted | Handmade |
| Foundation: | Cotton |
| Pile: | Wool | Flat Weave |
| Design: | French Needlepoint | Diamond Trellis | Running Deer Border |
| Origin: | Made in China |
| Condition: | Good | Minor surface wear in one small area of the border |
16' x 16' Square Needlepoint Rug | Wheat Brown Trellis with Running Deer Border | French Design
A true 16' x 16' square is a shape almost nobody weaves, and at 256 square feet this piece fills a great room, a square salon or a wide gallery corner to corner with a single unbroken pattern. The surface is worked in wool on a cotton foundation in the needlepoint manner, so it sits low and flat underfoot and the drawing reads with the crispness of embroidery rather than the softness of a deep pile. Every rug we sell leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity, and like the rest of our oversize rugs, this one ships free to all 50 states despite its size and weight.
Please Note About the Photographs:
The close-up taken beside the ruler and the inventory tag shows a small area of surface wear in the orange border, roughly 3 inches across, where the wool has thinned. It is stable and it is why this rug is graded Good rather than Excellent, and it is priced accordingly. In two of the photographs the rug is folded back on itself so the full 16 foot span could be captured indoors, which is why a strip of the border appears doubled.
Design and Motifs
The field is built on a diagonal lattice of serrated rust orange lines that cross the whole square on a 45 degree grid. At each crossing sits a small diamond medallion outlined in olive green with a gold and amber center, and the pattern repeats without a medallion or a center point, which is exactly why it suits a square: there is no long axis for the eye to follow. Inside each lattice cell the weaver set a curling olive vine with a hooked tip, a cluster of coral florets drawn as 5 petal rosettes, and a slim wheat sheaf in tan flanked by tiny blue seed dots. The main border is the character of the piece, a procession of running deer in wheat and ivory on an orange ground, alternating with ivory blossom sprays, and it runs continuously around all 4 corners without a break in the rhythm. Narrow olive and khaki guard stripes frame it on both sides and keep the border from crowding the field.
Wheat Brown, Rust Orange and Olive Green
The ground is a warm wheat brown that reads closer to ecru and pale straw in daylight and deepens toward honey and light camel under lamplight, as the two close-up photographs show. Against it the lattice is a soft rust orange, more terracotta than red, and the same tone fills the border ground at a slightly stronger saturation. Olive green does the structural work, outlining the diamonds and drawing every vine and leaf, and it shifts toward sage where the wool catches light. The diamond centers are gold moving into amber, the border blossoms and the deer are ivory and pale wheat, and the only cool note in the whole palette is a scatter of small blue dots along the wheat sheaves, no larger than a few stitches each. It is a quiet, sun-faded range of color that works in a room with limestone, oak or painted paneling, and it will not fight existing upholstery.
Made in China: French Needlepoint Tradition and Weave Quality
This is a Chinese workshop piece worked in the French needlepoint tradition, the flat, stitch-built style associated with Aubusson and Savonnerie interiors rather than with knotted pile weaving. Chinese ateliers took up that vocabulary for the European and American trade and became very good at it, and the evidence is in the drawing here: the lattice lines stay true across 16 feet without wandering, the deer in the border are consistent in size and stride from one end to the other, and the color changes are clean with no bleeding between the orange and the olive. Working a square this large on one loom is a serious undertaking, since any error in tension shows immediately when both dimensions are identical. Buyers comparing this with a knotted piece should understand the difference in construction as well as in origin, which is covered in our guide to Persian rugs vs Oriental rugs. The flat surface also means chairs slide easily over it, which is part of why needlepoint has always been a dining and reception room choice.
