Tabriz is the oldest and most commercially significant weaving city in the Persian rug world. Capital of Azerbaijan Province in northwestern Iran, it sits at the crossroads of the ancient trade routes that connected Persia to the Ottoman Empire, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. It was through Tabriz that Persian carpets first reached European markets in significant numbers during the 15th and 16th centuries, and it was Tabriz merchants and workshops that drove the commercialization of the Persian rug industry in the late 19th century when Western demand first created a mass export market.
A Tabriz rug is defined by its exceptional technical precision and the breadth of its design vocabulary. Unlike tribal rugs woven from memory, Tabriz rugs are produced in professional workshops by specialist weavers working from detailed paper cartoons, which allows the curvilinear complexity of the finest Persian designs to be executed with complete accuracy. The Tabriz definition in the rug world encompasses this combination of workshop precision, design diversity, and the city's singular commercial and artistic history. Tabriz carpets are knotted using the symmetrical Turkish knot on cotton foundations, which gives them structural stability and allows for fine pattern definition across the full range of formats the city produces.
The result of this long commercial history is a weaving tradition of extraordinary breadth. Tabriz produces a wider range of designs, formats, and quality levels than any other Persian weaving city. Classic central medallion compositions with elaborate floral fields, hunting scene carpets depicting mounted figures pursuing game through flowering landscapes, pictorial rugs with figurative and architectural subjects, garden carpet formats, and prayer rug designs all appear in the Tabriz repertoire. The quality range is equally broad, from commercial pieces produced for export to the finest collector-grade silk and wool examples that rank among the most technically accomplished rugs ever made.
Identifying a Tabriz rug comes down to three technical signatures. The foundation is cotton, not wool, which gives the rug a flat, stable back and allows finer knotting than the wool foundations used in tribal pieces. The knot is the symmetrical Turkish knot, also called the Ghiordes knot, which produces a slightly more durable pile than the asymmetrical Persian knot used in Kashan and Isfahan. The pile wool in quality Tabriz rugs has a distinctive sheen from the Tabriz washing process, and the designs show the precise curvilinear execution that only cartoon-based workshop weaving can achieve. The raj system, which counts knots per 7 centimeters of width, is used to grade Tabriz quality, with higher raj numbers indicating finer knotting and greater design resolution.
Every Tabriz rug in our collection is hand-knotted using quality wool or silk pile, sourced directly since 1952 with free worldwide shipping. For the full history and buying guide see our post on Tabriz rugs. Explore related Persian styles in our Persian rugs, Kashan rugs, and Oriental rugs collections. Shop by size in our 5'x8', 8'x10', and 9'x12' collections.
For the classical Persian medallion tradition, see our Kashan rugs. For bold geometric Persian medallion rugs, see our Serapi rugs.
