11'3" x 15'10" Persian Mashad Rug | All Over Floral Design | Red Field, Excellent Condition

This is a full room size Persian Mashad rug measuring 11'3" x 15'10", hand-knotted in fine wool on a cotton foundation and carrying an all over floral drawing rather than a central medallion. The proportions put it firmly in oversize Persian rug territory, the size that covers a long living room or a formal dining table with seating pulled clear of the edge. The pile is even from end to end with no low spots, the sides and ends are original and intact, and the fringe is clean and full. Every rug we ship leaves with a certificate of authenticity recording the origin, the materials and the hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The field is an all over composition built on a curving vine lattice, with large lotus palmettes, split leaf arabesques and serrated saz leaves repeating on a mirrored axis in both directions. At the center 4 shield shaped palmettes frame a small 8 petal rosette, a quiet anchor that reads as a medallion from across the room without interrupting the repeat. Cypress sprays and cloud band tendrils fill the spaces between the larger blossoms, and the drawing stays curvilinear throughout, with none of the angular village shorthand. The main border is a wide navy band of alternating palmettes and rosettes joined by a thin vine, flanked on both sides by ivory guard stripes carrying a running flower and leaf meander, and then by narrow minor bands that step the design down to the selvage. The design resolves cleanly at all 4 corners, which is the mark of a workshop cartoon drawn for these exact dimensions rather than a pattern stretched to fit.

A Deep Red Field Against Navy and Ivory

The ground is a deep red that leans toward burgundy under warm light and toward a cooler madder tone in daylight, with the natural abrash of hand-dyed wool giving the field a soft, breathing depth instead of a flat wash. Against it the palmettes are worked in rose pink, ivory, dusty gold and a muted apricot, with the outlines and leaf structures drawn in dark indigo so the blossoms stand forward rather than blur into the ground. Small touches of blue green and teal sit inside the leaf tips and rosette centers and act as the cool accent that keeps the red from feeling heavy. The main border is near black navy, which frames and calms the whole field, while the ivory guard stripes draw a clear light line around the perimeter and pick up the same rose and gold used inside. It is a warm, traditional palette that sits well with dark wood, brass and leather, and the ivory framing keeps it from closing in a large room.

Mashad Weaving in Northeast Persia

Mashad is the capital of Khorasan in northeast Persia, a pilgrimage city whose workshops have supplied large format carpets for reception halls and estates for well over a century. Khorasan wool is long stapled and takes dye with a distinct glow, which is why Mashad reds hold their saturation as the pile burnishes with age instead of going gray. The city weaves on the Persian knot with a heavy cotton warp and weft, producing a substantial, flat lying carpet that keeps its shape at 15'10" long, where a lighter weave would ripple. The back, shown here against a ruler, is fine and regular with tidy rows and no rough patches, and the knotting stays consistent across the width of the loom, which on a rug this wide means several weavers working in step to a single cartoon. Pieces like this were woven as room size commissions, and the balance of the drawing at the borders tells you the loom was set for the room it was meant for.