11'11" x 16'2" Persian Khorassan Rug | Signed 1940s Floral Medallion | Oversize Fine Wool

A rug of this scale from the 1940's does not turn up often with its drawing still this crisp. The field runs 11'11" x 16'2", covered edge to edge in a fine floral lattice around a single star medallion, and at one end the weaver left a small woven cartouche, the signature that separates a workshop commission from ordinary village production. The pile is fine wool on a cotton foundation, still even underfoot with no thin areas, and the back photograph shows a tight, regular knot line across the whole width. Anyone shopping oversize 12x16 Persian rugs knows how rarely an antique in this format survives in usable condition. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, age, materials and knot construction.

Design and Motifs

The composition is a classic Khorassan reading of the medallion and all over floral field. At the center sits an 8 lobed star medallion on a midnight ground, its interior filled with a gold framed rosette, interlaced red strapwork and small turquoise compartments, each holding its own blossom. Radiating out from the medallion are 2 tiers of pendant lozenges and shield shaped cartouches in blue on the red ground, which give the field its sense of rotation rather than simple repetition. Between them runs an unbroken vine scroll of palmettes, carnations, rosettes and serrated leaves, drawn small enough that the pattern never blocks up even over 16 feet of length. The 4 corner spandrels are worked in dark indigo with ivory arabesques and a cusped outline, and at the top and bottom of the field a slender vase and pendant device anchors the axis. The border system is 7 bands deep: a navy main border of alternating palmettes and flowering sprays, flanked by rose and ivory guard stripes that carry a tiny repeating blossom, all finished with a narrow outer stripe on plain red.

A Burgundy Field Lit by Indigo and Gold

The ground color is a deep burgundy red that pulls toward wine and plum in low light and toward warm brick where daylight hits the pile directly. Against it the weaver stacked cool tones: midnight indigo in the medallion, spandrels and main border, mid blue in the lozenges, and a clear sky turquoise used in tiny quantities inside the cartouches and blossom centers, which is the color that makes the whole field sparkle. Gold appears in careful measure, outlining the medallion frame, filling occasional leaves and picking out the odd rosette, and ivory does the drawing work, tracing vine stems and blossom petals so the pattern stays legible across the full 16 feet. Rose pink, soft moss green, caramel brown and a rare flicker of orange round out the palette. The ivory guard stripes are what hold it all together, separating burgundy from indigo so neither field nor border swallows the other. Colors read as natural dyes with the gentle tonal movement of hand dyed yarn rather than flat modern shades.

Khorassan Weaving and the Looms of Mashad

Khorassan is the northeastern province of Persia, and its weaving capital is Mashad, a pilgrimage city whose workshops built their reputation on curvilinear floral drawing at large scale. The tradition of antique Persian Mashad rugs is a workshop tradition rather than a village one: cartoon drawn designs, long looms capable of taking a 16 foot warp, and master weavers who signed their finished work, exactly as this piece is signed. The wool of the region is long stapled and takes dye deeply, which is why the reds on a good Khorassan hold their saturation for generations and gain that low sheen you can see across the surface in the angled photographs. The knot count here is consistent with fine workshop production rather than commercial output, which is what allows a vine this thin and a medallion this detailed to be drawn without the lines breaking up. If you want to understand how a piece like this is placed in the 1940's, our guide on how to date an Oriental rug walks through the wear, dye and construction evidence we read on the back.