10'8" x 16'5" Persian Isfahan Rug | Signed Oversize Floral Medallion | Red Field, Excellent Condition

This is a genuine palace piece: 10'8" x 16'5" of hand-knotted wool drawn in the classical Isfahan manner, with a slender ivory and indigo medallion floating on a deep red field that is filled corner to corner with curving vine. The weaver signed the work in a cream cartouche set into the ivory guard border along one end, which tells you this came off a named workshop loom rather than an anonymous production line. The pile is a full 3/8" with no wear, no repairs and no open areas, and the wool still has the quiet sheen that comes from good fleece and honest dyes. Pieces this long are the practical answer for a formal salon, a long dining room or a double-height great room, and if you are comparing it against other oversize Persian rugs it holds its own on both drawing and condition. Every rug we ship leaves with a certificate of authenticity that records the origin, materials, size and construction.

Design and Motifs

The centre holds a small, tightly drawn rosette medallion, an 8 petal flower ringed by lobed indigo cartouches and a halo of ivory arabesque, with a pointed pendant reaching out along the vertical axis at each end. Around it the field never rests: scrolling vines carry palmettes, lotus blossoms, serrated acanthus leaves and small clustered rosettes in an all-over rhythm that repeats on the long axis without ever becoming mechanical. The 4 corners are marked by soft camel and salmon spandrels filled with the same vine work, which lifts the corners out of the red and gives the composition its frame. The main border is a wide indigo band of alternating palmettes and open flower heads joined by a continuous meander, flanked on both sides by narrow ivory guard stripes of running rosettes and a fine reciprocal stripe at the outer edge. The signature cartouche breaks that guard stripe on one end, exactly where a workshop weaver would place it.

Madder Red, Indigo and Ivory

The ground is a warm madder red that reads closer to a ripe tomato under daylight and deepens toward brick under lamplight, and it is the colour that carries the whole room. Against it the border runs a dark indigo navy, almost ink at the outer edge, so the field looks brighter than it really is. The medallion core and the guard stripes are ivory going to cream, and the corner spandrels sit in a soft salmon and camel that bridges the red and the ivory instead of fighting either. The flower heads are picked out in sky blue, a deeper cobalt, olive and sage green, walnut brown, terracotta and clean white, with the white used sparingly as the highlight that makes each blossom legible from standing height. There is no harsh synthetic note anywhere in the palette, and the abrash across the red field is gentle enough that it reads as depth rather than variation.

Isfahan Weaving and Workshop Quality

Isfahan sits in central Persia and has been the reference point for court weaving since the Safavid workshops of the 16th century. The reputation rests on drawing: the curved line, the flowing vine, the ability to hold a symmetrical cartouche at full scale, and none of that is possible without a tight knot count on a stable loom. Everything about this piece follows that tradition, from the balanced spandrels to the way the border meander closes cleanly at all 4 corners. The wool pile is knotted on a cotton foundation, which is what keeps a rug of this length flat and square over decades, and the reverse shows an even, disciplined knot with the pattern reading clearly through to the back. If you want the background on the town, the workshops and how quality is judged, our complete guide to Isfahan rugs covers it in detail. A signed, oversize example in this condition does not come along often.