A Savonnerie is the formal European court carpet with a knotted pile, and almost everything written about it online is history. This page is the other half. Every number here is measured from the 25 titled antique Savonneries we had in stock on 20 October 2026, compared against the other 4,814 antique rugs on the site, so you can see what the type actually is on the floor rather than what the catalogues of the 18th century say it was.
The short version: this is the largest format and the oldest reaching type we hold, it is priced at a modest premium per square foot rather than the fourfold premium the headline suggests, and the one distinction that matters when buying one is construction. If you want the history of the manufactory and the broader French tradition, our rugs of France overview covers it and this page will not repeat it.
What an antique Savonnerie is, measured
The name comes from a soap works on the Seine that was converted into a carpet manufactory under royal charter in the 17th century. What the name means for a buyer today is narrower and more useful: a wool pile carpet, hand knotted, in the formal neoclassical and floral vocabulary of the French court, made either in France or in a workshop elsewhere in Europe working in that manner.
Our 25 bear that out with very little noise. Twenty four record a hand knotted pile against 78.1 percent across the rest of the antique stock. All 25 record wool as the pile face. Eighteen carry the European design value, 72 percent against 4.3 percent catalogue wide, and 18 are floral. The one exception on construction is a piece whose own record contradicts itself in three places at once, and it is excluded from every figure on this page. The last section explains why.
What the type is not is a pattern. You will see rugs described as Savonnerie because they carry scrolling acanthus and a central medallion, and that is a description of taste rather than of origin or construction. We hold a 1930s Chinese carpet whose own description says it blends Chinese weaving with French court design, and in our records it carries the Savonnerie type value. The rug is honestly described and the tag is doing the wrong job. If a listing calls something a Savonnerie, the first question is where it was woven and the second is whether it has a pile.
The size question comes first with this type
Most type guides leave format to the end. Here it has to come first, because format is the single strongest fact about the group and it drives everything else including the price.
Sixteen of our 25 are over 250 square feet. Across the other 4,814 antiques that band holds 4.4 percent of the stock, so Savonnerie is running at 14.4 times the catalogue rate, the most extreme format concentration in this series of guides. The median piece covers 273 square feet against 59.5 for the catalogue. The median long side is 19.5 feet against 10.0 feet. Nineteen of the 25 carry the large oversized size value, 76 percent against 9.2 percent, while room size runs at 0.28 times and small scatter at 0.23 times the catalogue rate.
In standard sizes the group clusters where almost nothing else does: five at 12 by 18, three at 12 by 22, three at 14 by 20, three at 16 by 21 and over and three at 21 by 22 and over, where that last band holds 0.3 percent of the catalogue.
The practical consequence is blunt. The largest piece we hold is an Austrian example, yellow ground with a knotted pile at $40,500, and it measures 270 by 354 inches, which is 22.5 by 29.5 feet. It needs a ballroom. If your room is under roughly 12 by 15 feet, this type will fight you, and the same formal European look is available in the flatwoven traditions at a fraction of the floor area. Our 10 by 14 and 9 by 12 guides are the better starting point for an ordinary large room.
Set against the rest of the series, the contrast is complete. The antique Turkmen group runs 46 percent under 20 square feet with nothing over 150. The Serab group is 72 percent narrow runners. The Khotan group is 57 percent room size. Savonnerie sits at the far end of that line, and the two ends of the European and Central Asian market barely overlap at all.
What an antique Savonnerie costs, and why the headline is misleading
The headline looks dramatic. Our 25 have a median price of $40,500 against $9,800 for the other 4,814 antiques in stock, so 4.13 times the catalogue. The spread runs from $5,250 to $220,000, with the quarter points at $11,250, $21,500, $75,000 and $186,000.
Measured by the square foot that premium mostly disappears. The group runs $199 against $167, which is 1.19 times the catalogue. Dimensions are recorded on all 25, so nothing is estimated.
Matched on measured area rather than on size band names, the picture is a modest premium that only becomes real at the very top of the size range:
- 140 to 220 square feet, n of 3: price 1.03 times, per square foot 0.93 times. No premium at all.
- 200 to 320 square feet, n of 11: price 1.39 times, per square foot 1.23 times.
- 300 to 600 square feet, n of 9: price 1.34 times, per square foot 1.39 times.
- 150 to 400 square feet, n of 17: price 1.00 times, per square foot 1.05 times.
- 250 square feet and up, n of 16: price 1.07 times, per square foot 1.21 times.
The 0.93 times row is printed here deliberately. It cuts against the story the other rows tell, and a page that shows only the supporting cut is not measuring anything. Cuts with fewer than three pieces are left out entirely, and no mean is quoted anywhere on this page because one carpet moves it.
Read together: the premium on an antique Savonnerie is real but small, it lives in the biggest sizes, and it is nothing like the fourfold figure the headline median suggests. That matters in both directions. Three earlier types in this series, Turkmen, Afshar and Baluch, looked cheap on the headline purely because they are small. Savonnerie looks dear for the same reason in reverse. A format skewed type reads wrong on the headline whichever way the skew runs, and the only honest comparison is per square foot inside a matched size band.
The middle of our own market, for reference, is where most buyers actually land. A sand ground floral medallion carpet from the 1920s sits at $75,000 and measures 168 by 264 inches. A French floral at $60,000 measures 156 by 273 inches. A coral ground allover at $88,000 measures 186 by 252 inches. Below them a large French knotted carpet at $30,000 measures 126 by 222 inches, and the entry point into the type at an ordinary room size is a floral medallion carpet at $8,000 measuring 93 by 150 inches. That last one is the piece to look at first if you want to know whether you like the type before committing to the floor area it usually demands.
Inside the type, size does not predict price per square foot
This is the part that surprises people who have just absorbed the paragraph above. Comparing Savonneries with each other rather than with the catalogue, area tells you almost nothing about value per square foot.
The internal spread is 40 fold, from $29 to $1,163 per square foot across 25 carpets, and the correlation between area and price per square foot is slightly negative at minus 0.19, which is to say there is no usable relationship at all. The two ends make the point better than the statistic does. The cheapest per foot is an oversized French Savonnerie at $11,250 which measures 201 by 276 inches, 385 square feet, and its own description records profound wear, which is the whole explanation. The dearest per foot is a small French allover floral at $56,500, measuring 66 by 106 inches, dated circa 1775 and recorded as 18th century.
So in this type the variables that move price per square foot are age and condition, not scale. An early piece in poor condition and a late piece in good condition can arrive at the same number from opposite directions, which is why asking for the condition report in writing matters more here than in almost any other type we sell. Ten of our 25 record a repair in their own condition notes, which is 40 percent against 19.4 percent across the rest of the antique stock. A repaired Savonnerie is the normal case, not the exception, and that is a consequence of the size: a 300 square foot carpet that has been on a floor for a century has been walked on in a way a scatter rug never was.
Two more reference points, both at the top of the market. The dearest carpet in the group is an oversized red French allover floral at $220,000, measuring 188 by 248 inches, which works out at $679 the square foot. Next to it sits a coral ground French allover at $187,500, measuring 178 by 250 inches. Both are in the same size band as pieces costing a fifth as much.
Savonnerie, Aubusson, Bessarabian, needlepoint: one taste, four constructions
These four labels describe the same decorative language and four different ways of making a carpet, and they are the most commonly confused group in the antique trade. Measured across our own antique stock on the same day:
- Savonnerie, 25 pieces. Median $40,500, median 273 square feet, $199 the square foot. Knotted pile on 24 of 25.
- Aubusson, 61 pieces. Median $25,000, median 179 square feet, $158 the square foot. Flat weave recorded on 52.
- Bessarabian, 26 pieces. Median $14,300, median 68 square feet, $241 the square foot. Flat weave on all 26.
- Needlepoint, 44 pieces. Median $21,000, median 98 square feet, $194 the square foot. Stitched rather than woven.
Note the order. Bessarabian has the lowest headline price of the four and the highest price per square foot. Savonnerie has the highest headline price and sits in the middle per square foot. Aubusson, the most famous name of the four, is the cheapest per square foot we hold. The headline ranking and the value ranking are not the same ranking, and the difference is entirely format. Our Bessarabian guide works the same question from the flatweave side, and the Aubusson guide covers the French flatweave in full.
Now the uncomfortable part. Construction is the one reliable divider between these labels, and our own records do not hold it cleanly. Of the 61 titled antique Aubussons in stock, 52 record a flat weave, 8 record a hand knotted pile and 2 record a hand woven value. An Aubusson is a flatwoven tapestry carpet by definition, so those eight pile records cannot all be right, and on two of them the title itself says flat weave while the weave field says pile. On the needlepoint side the same field carries four different values across 44 pieces.
We are publishing that because it is the useful lesson rather than an embarrassment to hide. Nobody should buy a carpet of this family on the strength of a type label, ours included. Turn a corner over. A knotted pile has individual knots on the reverse and a surface with depth. A tapestry weave is flat on both faces with the design reading through. Needlework sits on a visible canvas grid. Thirty seconds of looking beats any label, and our foundation guide shows what you are looking at on the back. One of our 25 is titled both Savonnerie and Aubusson at $91,000, measuring 183 by 360 inches, which is a stacked label on a single carpet and exactly the thing to ask about.
Not all of them are French
The trade talks about Savonnerie as a French type. Our stock says it is a French tradition practised in several countries. Of the 25, 18 carry France as the recorded origin, 3 Spain, 3 Austria and 1 Romania.
Those proportions mean more than they look. We hold 115 French antique rugs in total, so Savonnerie is 16 percent of our French stock. We hold 10 Spanish, so this one type is 30 percent of it. And we hold exactly four Austrian antique rugs, three of which are Savonneries, so if you want to see Austrian carpet weaving on this site you are almost certainly looking at this type. The three Austrian pieces also carry the Central European value: a yellow ground medallion carpet at $18,000 measuring 115 by 276 inches, a large example at $68,000 measuring 162 by 225 inches, and the 22 by 29 foot piece mentioned earlier.
The Spanish pieces are worth their own paragraph because the market undervalues them. A Spanish Savonnerie is a carpet woven in Spain in the French court manner, and we hold three: an ivory and yellow trellis design at $24,000 measuring 128 by 208 inches, a light ivory trellis lattice at $18,800 measuring 154 by 234 inches, and a Spanish knotted carpet at $13,600 measuring 134 by 163 inches. All three are cheaper than our French median by a wide margin, and all three are the same construction. If the look is what you want rather than the French label, this is where the value sits.
A caution on origin that applies to the whole type. Origin on a European decorative carpet is usually inferred from design, structure and wool rather than documented, and our records show that honestly if you read them closely. One of the 18 pieces carrying a French origin value, a 1925 European Savonnerie at $21,500 measuring 158 by 210 inches, describes itself in its own text as Spanish or Austrian. So the 72 percent French figure above is the recorded figure, not a certainty, and we would rather say so than tidy it away.
This type reaches further back than anything else we hold
Six of the 25 are dated before 1830. Across the other 4,814 antiques that band is 2.3 percent of stock, so the group runs about ten times the catalogue rate at the early end. Two are recorded as 18th century and four carry a circa 1820 date, out of only 15 circa 1820 rugs on the entire site.
The two 18th century pieces are the cheapest and one of the dearest per square foot in the group, which says everything about condition. The circa 1750 oversized French carpet at $11,250 is the bargain of the group on any per foot measure and it is honestly described as heavily worn. The circa 1775 allover floral at $56,500 is a fifth of the size and five times the money.
At the other end the type kept being made. Seven are circa 1900, which is 2.32 times the catalogue rate, and five are circa 1920. Six carry a plain 19th century value. A Savonnerie from 1900 or 1925 is not a reproduction, it is a later carpet from a continuing tradition, and our guide to how rug age is determined explains where the antique line falls and why it matters to price. The early pieces command the premium, so the date claim is worth testing: ask what the circa rests on.
One of the clearest early examples is a French Empire carpet at $26,500, circa 1820, measuring 96 by 162 inches, with a green field and pink accents. Empire period Savonneries are genuinely scarce, and at that size it is also one of the few pieces in the type that fits an ordinary large room.
Colour: pale grounds, and almost no blue
Fourteen of the 25 carry ivory, beige, cream or white, 56 percent against 28.7 percent catalogue wide. Gold, yellow and orange runs at 2.15 times the catalogue rate, green at 2.66 times, coral, salmon and pink at 1.28 times.
The absence is the more useful fact. Blue is the most common colour across our antique stock, on 23.3 percent of it, and appears on exactly one of the 25 Savonneries. Red and rust also appears on one. If you are furnishing around a strong blue or a deep red and you want a carpet from this type, you are shopping in a very thin slice of a 25 piece group, and the flatwoven French and East European options will give you far more to choose from.
Two pieces show the type at its most characteristic in colour. The light cream floral French pile carpet at $60,000 measures 174 by 226 inches. The ivory allover trellis at $26,500 measures 195 by 228 inches, and it is a quarter of the price for a slightly larger floor.
Design: floral and medallion, trellis at eight times, geometry almost absent
Eighteen of the 25 are floral, 1.47 times the catalogue rate. Eleven carry a central medallion, 1.50 times. Eleven are allover compositions, slightly below the catalogue rate. Geometric runs at 0.41 times, on four pieces of 25 against 39 percent of the catalogue, which makes this one of the least geometric types we have measured.
The design signature of the group is the trellis or lattice, on eight of 25, which is 8.37 times the catalogue rate. A diamond lattice carrying small floral sprigs is as much a Savonnerie marker in our stock as the grand medallion is, and it is the quieter and more usable of the two in a modern room. Eight pieces also carry the classic traditional value at 2.13 times the catalogue rate.
What we will not do is read meaning into the ornament. The archive copy for this type mentions royal emblems and architectural mouldings, and those are plausible for the tradition but they are not recorded in any structured field we hold, so this page does not count them. One piece carries a cupids and cherubs design value and it is the only antique on the site that does.
Shape: a round and a square, but less variety than you would expect
The 2026 measurement of our antique Aubussons found 28 percent of them non rectangular against 15 percent catalogue wide, so the obvious expectation was that the French pile tradition would be similar or more adventurous. It is the opposite. By the recorded shape field 3 of our 25 Savonneries are not plain rectangles, 12 percent against 25.9 percent for the rest of the antique stock, which is 0.46 times the catalogue rate.
We hold one round example, a coral ground oversized round carpet at $96,500 measuring 240 by 240 inches, which is a 20 foot circle and its own description notes how rare large round Savonneries are. We hold one square, a late 19th century French wool pile carpet at $186,000 measuring 276 by 276 inches, which is 23 feet each way.
The third non rectangular record is a size word sitting in the shape field rather than a shape, which is one of several record faults this page lists below. And the count understates reality in the other direction too: a carpet we list as a rare shape at $27,000, measuring 147 by 252 inches, is described in its own text as having a curved corner cut to fit an architectural feature, while its shape field reads rectangle. So the field is not a census of shape. If shape matters to your room, ask for photographs of all four corners rather than trusting the filter, ours included.
What our own records get wrong on this type
This series publishes its own record faults, because a buyer who knows how trade data goes wrong can read any dealer’s listing better, and because a page that corrects our size words in public has to be willing to name the corrections. On the 25 Savonneries there are four worth your attention.
One carpet disagrees with itself about origin, date and construction
A green neoclassical floral carpet in the group has a title that says 1820s and French, a circa date of 1820, and a description that says it was woven in France around 1820. Its recorded origin is Spain, and its web address says 1920s, Spanish, and signed by the Real Fabrica de Tapices, the Spanish royal tapestry works in Madrid. It is also the single piece in the group recorded as hand woven rather than knotted pile, on a type defined by its pile. One record, three contradictions. We have excluded it from every statistic on this page rather than pick a version, and it is flagged internally for correction. If you are looking at it, the signature is the thing to ask for photographs of: a manufactory mark on the back settles origin in a way that no title can.
A French origin that the rug itself does not claim
One of the 18 pieces carrying France as the recorded origin describes itself as Spanish or Austrian in its own text. The field is more confident than the carpet is. That is why the origin section above gives the recorded number and then tells you what it rests on.
Size words that the tape measure contradicts
The circa 1775 piece at $56,500 carries a small scatter size value and its description suggests it was made as a hallway runner. It measures 66 by 106 inches, a ratio of 1.6, which is neither a scatter rug nor a runner. One Austrian carpet at $18,000 carries a long and narrow value in its shape field at 115 by 276 inches, which is 9.6 feet wide. We corrected eleven titles of this kind on another type in October 2026 and these are the same fault on a third. The general rule for any dealer’s listing: ask for width and length in inches and ignore the adjective.
A description that measures itself two ways
The French Empire carpet above, at $26,500, is titled at 8 feet by 13 feet 6 inches and its recorded dimensions are 96 by 162 inches, which agrees. Its description then gives the length as 13 feet 0 inches. Six inches is not much, but on a carpet being fitted to a room it is the difference between working and not, so every dimension quoted on this page is taken from the recorded measurement rather than from the prose.
How to buy one without being taken
- Check the construction yourself. Knotted pile for Savonnerie, flat tapestry for Aubusson and Bessarabian, canvas grid for needlework. Our own records get this wrong on eight Aubussons, so no label is enough.
- Get the measured width and length in inches before you get attached. On this type, the median piece needs 273 square feet of floor.
- Ask what the origin claim rests on. Signature, label, paperwork, or a judgement about style. A judgement is normal and respectable. A judgement presented as a fact is not.
- Ask what the circa date rests on, especially for anything offered as pre 1830. Six of our 25 are, and they carry the premium.
- Read the condition report before the price. Inside this type, condition and age move value per square foot and size does not. The cheapest piece per foot we hold is an 18th century carpet with profound wear.
- Compare per square foot, not per carpet. A 4.13 times headline became 1.19 times per square foot on this very page.
- Decide whether you want the name or the look. If the look, the Spanish and Austrian pieces and the flatwoven traditions give you more carpet for the money.
What this page does not claim
We record no knot count for any of these carpets, so nothing here says one is finer than another. Our guide to knots and KPSI explains why a knot count is not the quality measure it is sold as, and why we do not quote figures we have not counted. The material field on our listings describes the pile face, so this page makes no claim about warp or weft fibres; the foundation guide covers what those do. One of our own descriptions asserts a distinctive Spanish knot on a Spanish piece, and since knot type cannot be read from a photograph we are not repeating it. We have not tested the dyes on any of these carpets, so the natural and synthetic dye guide is where that question belongs. No mean price appears anywhere above, because with a $220,000 carpet in a group of 25 the mean is a description of one rug.
Where this fits in the European collection
Savonnerie is the pile corner of a European group we hold in depth. The Aubusson archive and the Aubusson guide cover the French flatweave, the Bessarabian archive and its guide cover the East European flatweave, needlepoint covers the stitched tradition and American hooked rugs the loop pile one. For the flatweave vocabulary more broadly there is the kilim archive and the kilim guide, and for the formal Persian alternative at this scale the Sultanabad guide. The Aubusson and needlepoint histories and the rugs of France overview carry the background this page leaves out, and the museum quality selection and the flat weave and hand knotted pile archives let you sort the whole catalogue by how it was made rather than by where.
Frequently asked questions
What is an antique Savonnerie rug?
A hand knotted wool pile carpet in the formal European court manner that takes its name from the Savonnerie manufactory in Paris. The defining feature is construction: a Savonnerie has a knotted pile, which is what separates it from the flatwoven French tapestry carpets it is usually shelved beside. Across the 25 titled antique Savonneries we hold in stock, 24 record a hand knotted pile and all 25 record wool as the pile face.
What is the difference between a Savonnerie and an Aubusson?
Construction, and it is the only reliable difference. A Savonnerie is knotted pile, so it has a surface you can sink a fingernail into. An Aubusson is a flat tapestry weave with no pile at all. The designs overlap almost completely, both were made for the same kind of formal room, and the labels are used loosely by sellers. Our own records show how loosely: of 61 titled antique Aubussons in stock, 52 record a flat weave and 8 record a knotted pile, and two of those eight say flat weave in their own titles. Settle it from the back of the rug, not from the label.
Are antique Savonnerie rugs expensive?
They are the dearest group we have measured, and most of that is size rather than a premium on the weave. Our 25 have a median price of $40,500 against $9,800 for the other 4,814 antiques in stock, which is 4.13 times the catalogue. By the square foot the group is $199 against $167, or 1.19 times. The median Savonnerie covers 273 square feet; the median antique on the site covers 59.5. You are paying for floor area first and for the tradition second.
How big is a typical antique Savonnerie?
Very large. Sixteen of our 25 are over 250 square feet, which is 64 percent against 4.4 percent across the rest of the antique stock, and the median long side is 19.5 feet against 10.0 feet for the catalogue. Only one of the 25 is under 40 square feet. If your room is under about 12 by 15 feet this is probably the wrong type to shop, and a smaller formal European option will serve better.
Are all Savonnerie rugs French?
No, and ours are not. Of the 25, 18 carry France as the recorded origin, 3 Spain, 3 Austria and 1 Romania. The Spanish and Austrian pieces were woven in the French court manner in their own royal and commercial workshops, and they are a real part of the market rather than fakes. Worth knowing: our three Austrian Savonneries are three of only four Austrian rugs on the whole site.
What colours do antique Savonneries come in?
Pale grounds, overwhelmingly. Fourteen of our 25 carry ivory, beige, cream or white, which is 56 percent against 28.7 percent catalogue wide. Gold and yellow run at 2.15 times the catalogue rate and green at 2.66 times. The surprise is what is missing: blue is the most common colour across our antique stock at 23.3 percent and appears on only one of the 25 Savonneries, and red or rust appears on one as well.
How old are antique Savonnerie rugs?
This type reaches earlier than any other we have measured. Six of the 25 are dated before 1830, which is 24 percent against 2.3 percent across the rest of the antique stock, and that includes two recorded as 18th century. Four carry a circa 1820 date, out of only 15 such rugs on the entire site. At the other end, seven are circa 1900 and five circa 1920, so the type stayed in production long after the royal workshops closed.
Can you get a small antique Savonnerie?
Rarely, and it will not be cheap per square foot. One of our 25 is under 40 square feet: a 47 by 70 inch ivory piece at $5,250. The second smallest is 48.6 square feet and costs $56,500 because it is dated circa 1775. Small Savonneries are either late and modest or early and important, with very little in between, because the type was commissioned for grand rooms and few small examples were made or survived.
Are round or square antique Savonneries available?
Yes but they are uncommon, and this type is actually less shape varied than our catalogue average. By the recorded shape field 3 of our 25 are not plain rectangles, which is 12 percent against 25.9 percent for the rest of the antique stock. We hold one round at 240 by 240 inches and one square at 276 by 276 inches. A third piece is described as having a curved corner cut for an architectural feature while its shape field still reads rectangle, so the field is not a complete census of shape.
How do I check a Savonnerie is what the label says?
Three checks, in this order. Turn a corner and look at the pile: knotted pile means Savonnerie territory, a flat tapestry face means Aubusson or Bessarabian whatever the tag says. Then ask for the measured width and length in inches rather than a size word, because size adjectives in our trade are unreliable and we have published corrections to our own. Then ask what the origin claim rests on: a signature, a label, a provenance document, or a judgement about style. On this type it is very often a judgement, and a seller who says so is being straight with you.
Everything on this page is measured from our own stock on 20 October 2026 and prices move as pieces sell. Tell us the room dimensions, the colour you are building around and whether the carpet has to take daily traffic, and we will tell you which of the 25 answers the question, including when the answer is that this is the wrong type for your room.