Moga Persian Tabriz Gold Black Hand Knotted Wool Carpet 10' x 14'

By the late nineteenth century, the looms of north-west Persia had refined a court style that the rest of the carpet world would spend a hundred years imitating. The medallion compositions credited to that tradition combined the architectural geometry of mosque tile work with floral arabesques drawn from miniature painting, and they set the standard for what a formal carpet ought to look like in a panelled room. The piece in front of you descends from that lineage, reworked by Indian master weavers who learned the same vocabulary of pendants, spandrels, and rosette-filled corners.

Three weavers shared the loom for roughly seven months. Hand-spun wool was tied knot by knot against a vertical cotton warp at a density tight enough to render every cusp of the central medallion. The pile is gold against a graphite black ground, with secondary tones of ivory and rust threading through the spandrels.

The composition

The medallion sits dead centre, a saffron-gold cartouche on a black field that absorbs ambient light and pushes the gold forward. Around it, a vinework of ivory tendrils carries the eye outward to spandrels of muted rust. Black is the hardest ground colour to pull off in wool because it shows every irregularity in the pile. Here it succeeds, the slight tonal shift across the field giving the rug the depth of an old lacquer panel.

What you are buying

Antique north-west Persian medallion carpets at this scale, with comparable density and condition, sit in the dealer market between thirty and seventy thousand dollars when they appear at auction. This is a new weaving in the same tradition, on the same kind of loom, in the same fibre. The rug appreciates with use rather than depreciating. Few objects you place underfoot improve in value across decades; this one does.

The piece in a room

10' x 14' (305 x 427 cm) is a reception scale. The rug expects a long dining setting for ten to twelve, or a formal seating arrangement with the sofa and chairs floating fully on top. Walls in plaster, oxblood, or deep moss hold the gold. A single overhead pendant lifts the medallion at night.

Conservation

Rotate one hundred and eighty degrees each spring and autumn so that traffic and daylight age the pile evenly. Vacuum weekly with suction only, beater bar disengaged. Blot any spill with a clean cotton cloth working from the outside in. Hand-wash by a wool-trained conservator every five to seven years. Treated this way, the rug runs eight decades and outlives the room it is bought for.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 305 x 427 cm (10' x 14')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3 weavers, ~7 months
• Pile: 9 mm wool
• Colour: gold and black with ivory and rust accents
• Origin: India

Free shipping anywhere in India. Cash on delivery available. Seven-day exchange. The rug ships crated for safe transit.