3'5" x 5' Persian Tabriz 60 Raj Rug | Wool and Silk | Burgundy Field, Ivory Star Medallion, Peach Spandrels | Signed Both Ends

A Tabriz weaver who signs a rug at both ends is not hedging. This 3'5" x 5' piece carries a woven cartouche on the ivory end band at each end, flanked by curling leaf scrolls, and it is woven at 60 Raj, about 400 knots per square inch, in wool with silk worked through every flower, vase and outline on a cotton foundation. The design is the Tabriz vase medallion: an ivory star at the center holding 4 baskets of flowers, a burgundy field of vases, baskets and sunburst palmettes, peach spandrels with a great vase in each corner, and a midnight navy border of vases and split-leaf arabesques. The silk shows in the photographs as a shine on the ivory medallion and the peach spandrels while the burgundy wool stays matte. The rug has never been on a floor, the pile is full, the ivory cotton fringes are intact, and one long side is bound in leather on the back. A certificate of authenticity from Rugs.net accompanies the rug.

Design and Motifs

The medallion is an ivory 8-point star with a scalloped peach outer skirt. At its center a coral and pink rosette with a gold heart radiates 8 navy-outlined petals, and around it the ivory ground is covered with a lattice of brown vines carrying pink lotus flowers, sage leaves and small gold blossoms. Four gold baskets of flowers sit at the star's cardinal points, each spilling pink and rose blooms over a brown wicker body, and a gold urn with a peach and pink fan of feathers stands as a pendant at the top and bottom of the medallion. The burgundy field around it is a garden of separate motifs on thin brown vines: 6 gold sunburst palmettes drawn like thistles, 4 small ivory baskets of pink flowers, 4 sage lotus buds, sprays of pink and white 5-petal blossoms, and curled olive leaves, all mirrored across both axes. Each corner of the field is cut by a large peach spandrel with a scalloped edge, and each spandrel holds a great gold urn on a lobed foot with a fan of pink, coral and ivory flowers above it and rose sprays on either side. An ivory guard with a pink and sage vine frames the field, followed by the midnight navy main border, which repeats a gold wicker basket of coral flowers between pairs of ivory split-leaf arabesques that curl around powder blue palmettes, with sprays of pink blossoms filling the ground. A peach cream outer guard with a thin brown stripe closes the frame, and beyond it, on each ivory end band, sits the signature cartouche between leaf scrolls.

Colors of This Burgundy and Peach Tabriz Rug

The field is a deep burgundy, a wine red with a plum cast that reads darker than a Kashan red and gives the pale motifs on it their glow. The spandrels, the medallion skirt and the outer guard are a peach cream, a warm pink-tinted ivory that is the second largest color on the rug and the one that changes most in the light, since much of it is woven in silk. The main border is a midnight navy that reads near black beside the burgundy and frames the whole composition in a dark band. The medallion is a clean ivory, and inside it and across the field the flowers run through rose and shell pink, a coral red, a mustard gold in the baskets, urns and palmettes, olive and sage green in the leaves, a powder blue in the border palmettes and a few field buds, and a warm brown for every stem and outline. The back shows the same colors slightly lighter with no bleeding, and the knot rows are fine and even.

Tabriz 60 Raj and the Double Signature

Tabriz in northwest Persia grades its rugs by Raj, the count of knots across a 7 cm span: 40 Raj is commercial work, 50 Raj is fine, and 60 Raj is where the collector grade begins, at roughly 400 knots per square inch. That is the density at which a weaver can draw a wicker basket strand by strand and give a lotus petal 3 shades, and it is the grade Tabriz workshops reserve for their wool and silk pieces. A signature at one end marks a workshop rug; a signature at both ends is rarer and marks a piece the workshop meant to be recognized from whichever way it is laid. Small Tabriz rugs at this grade are woven as showpieces rather than floor covering, and they are collected as such. Among 3x5 Persian rugs this one belongs in an entry, beside a bed or on a wall, and the burgundy, peach and navy palette sits as easily in a traditional room as in a modern one.