10' x 13' Persian Mahal Rug | Mauve Herati All-Over Field | Excellent Condition Wool Pile

This is a room size Persian Mahal in a color you rarely see at this scale: a deep mauve field, closer to aubergine in the corners, carrying an unbroken floral lattice from end to end. It measures 10' x 13' on the nose, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile that still stands upright and even across the whole surface. The photographs on hardwood show how the field shifts as the light moves along the nap, from plum in the shade to a warm rose where the sun hits it. Buyers shopping 10x13 Persian rugs usually have a full living room or a dining table to cover, and this one has the weight and the drawing to anchor either. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The field is a classic Herati lattice, the fish pattern, laid out as a true all-over design with no central medallion to interrupt it. Each diamond compartment holds a small rosette, and each rosette is framed by 4 curved lancet leaves that give the pattern its fish-like reading. Between the diamonds sit stepped star forms and tiny 8 petal flowerheads picked out in pale blue, which is what keeps such a dense repeat from reading as a blur. The main border is a red ground carrying alternating palmettes and cloud-bud rosettes joined by a scrolling vine, flanked on both sides by narrow ivory guard stripes with a running meander and a slate blue minor stripe. The corner resolutions are handled honestly in the village manner, with the border pattern turning the corner rather than being cut off, and the 4 corners each carry a large open palmette in gold and ivory that breaks up the red. The outer selvage is finished in solid mauve wool.

A Mauve Field Worked in Red, Blue and Orange

Mauve is the dominant note and the reason this rug stands apart from the usual red and navy Mahal. The ground sits between plum and grape, with a soft violet cast in the open passages and a darker aubergine reading along the edges where the pile leans away from the camera. Against it the drawing is carried in tomato red, burnt orange and rust, which supply almost all of the warmth, while ivory and pale butter yellow outline the rosettes and keep the lattice legible from across the room. Sky blue and a deeper slate blue appear in the small star compartments and in the guard stripes, cooling the composition down and tying the field to the border. The main border is a clean scarlet, considerably brighter than the field, so the rug frames itself the moment it is laid down. On a light oak or walnut floor the mauve reads purple; against warm cream walls it settles toward dusty rose.

Woven in the Mahal District of Central Persia

Mahal rugs come from the cluster of weaving villages around Arak and the old Sultanabad district in central Persia, an area that has supplied Western floors with large room size rugs for well over a century. The weave here is a village weave, not a city workshop weave, and that is exactly the point: a slightly heavier knot on a sturdy cotton foundation, a generous 3/8" wool pile, and drawing that stays relaxed and hand-drawn rather than mechanically perfect. The local wool is long-stapled and greasy with lanolin, which is why Mahal pile takes dye with this kind of depth and why it wears down slowly and evenly rather than thinning in traffic lanes. The back, shown in the last photograph, is tight and regular with clean straight rows, and the ends are finished with the original ivory fringe. Structurally this rug is built for decades of daily use under furniture.