Sandstone and Terracotta Mahi Medallion Tabriz, Hand-Knotted Wool Rug

100% wool pile, hand-knotted, finished with an ivory fringe at both ends. A full Tabriz composition inside 57 by 92cm — herati field, lobed medallion, pendants, spandrels and a multi-band border — depends on a very high knot count.

Be realistic about the sandstone. It is the border ground, the medallion and the spandrels together, so it accounts for a quarter of the rug and it is by some way the palest wool here. The dark field is forgiving and densely drawn, but it is only half the surface. At this size the piece will sit in a doorway, at a bedside or on a wall, and the wall suits it well — the drawing rewards close looking rather than being walked over.

Measure the frame on each of the four sides and it comes out 10.3, 10.0, 10.3 and 10.4cm. That is a spread of four millimetres. On a rug 57cm across, woven by hand, with the two side borders set by warp count and the two ends by how firmly the weft was beaten down, holding all four to within four millimetres of each other is the kind of control that does not happen by accident.

It also lands somewhere specific. A frame of that width leaves a field of 36.7 by 71.3cm, which works out at 49.9% of the rug's surface against 50.1% for the borders — as near an even split between the panel and its frame as measurement can distinguish. Widen the border by half a centimetre and the field drops to under 49; narrow it by the same and it rises past 50.8. Whether the weaver was aiming at halves or simply at a border that looked right, the result is a rug with no dominant part: the herati field and the palmette border each take exactly as much of your attention as the other, which on a piece this small is what stops it reading as a medallion with trim around it.