9' x 12' Sino Tabriz Rug | Burgundy Field, Ivory Floral Medallion | Hand-Knotted Wool, New

This is a new, never used hand-knotted rug woven in China in the classic Tabriz manner, and it lands squarely in the most useful format in the house: a true 9' x 12'. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, clipped low enough that the drawing stays crisp across the whole field, and the finish is what you want from a workshop piece, straight sides, even selvedges, and a clean white cotton fringe at both ends. As an Oriental rug it reads formal but not heavy, and because the weave is tight and the wool has a soft sheen, it photographs and lives the way far more expensive workshop pieces do. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is hand-knotted, along with its size, materials and origin. If you are shopping the format specifically, it sits with our other 9x12 rugs.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the textbook Tabriz medallion composition, drawn in curved line rather than village angles. At the center sits a round medallion built in concentric rings: an ivory core with an 8 petal rosette, a band of salmon and taupe palmettes, then a black ground carrying paired cartouches and rosettes, framed by 4 grey-green cloud bands at the compass points. Above and below, two pendant finials extend the medallion into the field. The burgundy ground around it is not left open, it is filled edge to edge with a fine scrolling vine system, thousands of small rosettes, split leaves, curling serrated acanthus and tiny buds, all balanced left to right without ever repeating exactly. The 4 corner spandrels drop to a soft grey-beige ground with larger cabbage-rose palmettes and hunting-style bird and animal silhouettes worked into the scroll. The main border is a wide black band of alternating palmettes and rose sprays on a continuous vine, flanked by ivory and grey-beige guard stripes and a narrow burgundy outer stripe that frames the whole piece.

A Deep Burgundy Field Against Black and Ivory

The dominant color is a deep wine burgundy, closer to claret than to a bright red, and it holds evenly from end to end with no abrash. Against it the main border reads as a dense black with a blue-black cast in raking light, which is what gives the rug its weight and keeps the busy field from floating. Between those two darks the palette turns soft: the spandrels and the medallion halo are a warm grey-beige, almost putty, with ivory and cream picked out in the guard stripes and the larger flower heads. The flowers themselves carry salmon, dusty rose, pale pink and a little pale blue in the small rosettes, and the leafwork runs through sage and olive green, which is the color that ties the field to the border. The overall effect is a dark, formal rug that still lights up a room, because the ivory and green detailing keeps catching the eye at close range.

Sino Tabriz Weaving and Quality

Sino Tabriz means exactly what it says: a rug hand-knotted in China to a Tabriz cartoon, and it is an honest, well established category of its own rather than an imitation. The Chinese workshops that took on these designs work at a knot density high enough to carry a curved line, which is the only reason a composition like this one succeeds; a coarse weave turns those scrolling vines into blocks. Here the knotting is fine and regular, the cotton warps and wefts are tight, and the pile has been clipped low so every rosette and every leaf tip stays legible, as the close-up photographs show. The wool is springy with a natural luster that deepens the burgundy and gives the ivory a slight glow. At 9' x 12' in new, never used condition, this is a rug built to take a dining table and chairs or a full seating group without showing the traffic.