10'11" x 15'7" Persian Isfahan Najafabad Rug | Red Field & Navy Border | 1980s Semi-Antique

Woven in the 1980s and still carrying a full, even pile, this 10'11" x 15'7" Persian Isfahan rug gives the Najafabad reading of the classic Isfahan medallion layout: a deep red field, an ivory lobed medallion and a midnight navy border, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation. At 131" across and 187" long it sits squarely among the oversize Persian rugs that cover a great room or a long formal dining space in one uninterrupted piece of drawing. The sides and fringes are sound, the 3/8" pile has worn level across 4 decades of careful ownership, and the rug ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an ivory lobed medallion built out from a small 8 petal rosette, layered with palmettes, cypress-shaped leaf forms and fine navy outlining, and finished top and bottom with slender pendant finials. Around it the red field is packed edge to edge with an all-over vine scroll: rosettes, serrated sickle leaves and half palmettes turning on thin stems, drawn in mirrored halves so the pattern reads the same from either end of the room. The 4 corners carry pale blue and camel spandrels filled with arabesque scrollwork, a detail visible in the corner close-up. The main navy border runs an alternating rhythm of large flowering palmettes and upright stems, flanked by ivory guard stripes and a narrow pale blue minor band that keeps the heavy border from crowding the field.

A Deep Madder Red Under Ivory and Navy

The field is a deep madder red that leans slightly toward crimson in the open ground and darkens where the pile lies against the light, the kind of red that anchors a large room rather than shouting in it. Against it, the medallion and spandrel work are ivory and soft cream warming to camel and light beige, with sage and olive greens in the leaves and clear pale sky blue used sparingly through the inner border and corner scrolls. The main border is a dense midnight navy carrying blossoms in apricot, rust, ivory and the same red as the field, so the border echoes the ground instead of fighting it. Small hits of deep burgundy and soft rose sit inside the larger palmettes and give the wool its depth at close range.

Najafabad and the Isfahan Weaving Tradition

Najafabad lies a short distance west of Isfahan in central Persia and weaves to Isfahan cartoons, the same curved line, flowing vine and mirrored medallion that the Safavid workshops of Isfahan made famous from the 16th century onward. Where the city workshops push knot counts up with silk foundations and kork wool, Najafabad weavers work the same drawing in all wool on a cotton foundation, which gives a heavier, more robust rug that handles daily traffic in a room this size. The knotting is tight and regular, the horizontal lines of the design stay true across nearly 11 feet of width, and the back shows clean, even rows with no bowing. That combination of Isfahan drawing and village durability is exactly why semi-antique Najafabad pieces in this format are steadily harder to find.