2'8" x 4'2" Persian Tabriz Rug | Ivory Floral with Burgundy Border
Small rugs are where a weaver has nowhere to hide, and this 2'8" x 4'2" Persian Tabriz holds up to close inspection. An ivory field crowded with blossoms, palmettes and fine red tendrils sits inside a deep burgundy border, all hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation at 220 to 240 knots per square inch. It has never been used, so the pile is full and even and the cotton fringe is intact. Turn it over and the back reads almost as clearly as the front, which is what you want from a well-made workshop rug. It arrives with our certificate of authenticity.
Design and Motifs
Instead of a large medallion, the field is built around a small sunburst rosette at dead center. It is a red flower head ringed in navy with a pale blue core. Above and below it, a column of mirrored palmettes and split-leaf forms runs the length of the rug and ends in a larger flame palmette at each end. Everything else is mirrored left to right. Burgundy carnation-style blossoms, clusters of small blue rosettes, lavender palmettes with salmon hearts and dark spiky leaf sprays are tied together by a web of hairline red vines, so the eye keeps finding new flowers without the field ever feeling busy. The main border carries ivory arabesque scrolls that curl around blue cross-shaped flowers and small palmettes. Two blush guard stripes, each with a grey-blue ribbon vine and tiny red rosettes, frame it inside and out.
The Colors: Ivory, Burgundy and Slate Blue
The field is a warm ivory with a soft cream cast, light enough to brighten a small floor but not a stark white. Against it, the burgundy reads as a rich wine red. It is darkest in the main border and in the large carnation blossoms, and it carries through the fine red vine work that links the whole field. Slate blue is the second voice, a muted grey-leaning blue used for the rosette clusters, the leaf sprays and the cross-shaped flowers in the border, with a lighter powder blue in the highlights. Navy, close to black, outlines the motifs and gives the drawing its crispness. Lavender and mauve soften the palmettes, salmon and peach warm their centers, and a blush tan fills both guard stripes, making a gentle step between the ivory field and the red border. The fringe is natural ivory cotton.
Tabriz: The Workshop City of Northwest Persia
Tabriz, in the northwest of Persia, has been a trading and weaving capital for centuries, and its workshops can weave almost any classical Persian design with real precision. Weavers there work with a hooked knife that knots and cuts in one motion, and quality is graded on the Raj system, which counts knots across a fixed width. Persian Tabriz rugs range from everyday village pieces to collector-grade silk masterworks. At 220 to 240 knots per square inch, this one sits in the solid workshop band, dense enough to draw clean curves and fine tendrils, as the rosettes and vine work show. At 2'8" x 4'2" it is a small piece with real Tabriz drawing, the kind that holds its own at a bedside, inside an entry or on a wall.
