10'9" x 14'9" Persian Mahal Rug | Signed Antique Floral Medallion | Beige & Soft Teal

This is an antique signed Persian Mahal in a genuine room size, 10'9" x 14'9" of hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation, with a lobed medallion floating on a beige and camel field. What sets it apart from the ordinary village Mahal is the drawing: the vinework is curved and continuous rather than angular, the medallion is built up in four distinct concentric rings, and a small woven cartouche sits in the brown main border, which is the mark of a workshop piece rather than an anonymous one. The pile has worn down evenly over decades into that low, hard, slightly glossy surface that collectors look for, and the colors have softened rather than faded. It ships with a certificate of authenticity. At this footprint it belongs with the oversize Persian rugs, covering a full seating group or a long dining table without crowding the walls, and if you want to understand how a piece like this is dated, our guide on how to date an Oriental rug walks through the same clues we used here.

Design and Motifs

The composition works from the center outward in rings. At the core sits a small blue rosette inside an ivory star, ringed by a chocolate brown band of tight scrolling leaves, then a broad ivory zone filled with white and pale blue rosettes and hooked palmettes, then the great scalloped medallion outline with its brown cloud-band lobes and its pendant finials pointing to the top and bottom ends. Around all of that, the open field carries a dense flowering vine, small 8 petal rosettes, cypress-like sprays and curling serrated leaves, worked so finely that the eye keeps finding new elements. The 4 corners are anchored by teal spandrels holding large leaf-and-blossom cartouches. Framing the whole is a multi-border system: a wide brown main border of alternating palmettes and blossoms, flanked by salmon and ivory guard stripes carrying small floral arches and rosettes, with a plain camel outer edge. Set in the main border along one end is the woven signature cartouche, a detail that turns a decorative antique into a documented one.

A Beige Field Read in Teal, Brown and Salmon

Beige is the honest headline, but this is a layered beige. The medallion interior is a pale ivory cream, almost bone. Moving out, the field warms into a camel gold that shifts with the light and the direction of the pile, lighter when viewed from the fringe end and deeper from the side. Surrounding that field, the ground behind the spandrels is a soft dusty teal, a blue-green that has gone gentle with age and gives the rug its cool counterweight. The drawing is carried in chocolate brown and near-black, which is what makes the palmettes and leaf scrolls read so clearly against the light ground. Scattered through the vinework are chalky salmon and pale rose blossoms, small touches of sky blue in the rosette centers, and crisp ivory outlines that keep the pattern from going muddy. The guard stripes bring in a warmer apricot salmon, and the outer edge closes on plain camel. Against pale oak, walnut or a dark wood floor, the overall impression is warm sand with blue-green shadows, a palette that sits easily with cream walls, brass and antique furniture.

Mahal Weaving in Western Persia

Mahal rugs come from the cluster of weaving villages in the Arak district of western Persia, an area that supplied large room-size carpets to Europe and America from the late 19th century onward and built its reputation on tough, long-wearing wool and generous proportions. Most Mahals are village work: bold, loosely drawn, all-over patterns knotted on a sturdy cotton foundation. This piece sits at the top of that tradition. The knot count is far higher than the village norm, which is exactly why the curved vine and the fine rosettes hold their shape rather than stepping into angles, and the finished cartouche tells you a named weaver or small atelier was responsible for it. The back, shown against the ruler, is even and tightly packed, the selvedges are original and intact, and the cotton warps are firm, which is why a rug of this age still lies flat and still takes daily traffic. Woven at 10'9" x 14'9", it was made from the outset as a principal room carpet, and it has survived in the condition to serve as one again.