11'4" x 13'6" Persian Mashad Rug | Signed All-Over Floral | 1980s Burgundy Field

This is a room-filling 11'4" x 13'6" hand-knotted Persian Mashad rug from the 1980s, woven in wool on a cotton foundation and signed by its workshop in a small cartouche set into the ivory border. It is the kind of piece a Mashad atelier produced for a formal room rather than for the export bale: an uninterrupted all-over floral field on deep burgundy, framed by a near-black navy main border and a sequence of ivory and sky blue guard stripes. The pile is still full and lustrous through most of the field, with only slight low pile wear in places, which is unusual for a rug of this scale that has been on a floor. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

There is no medallion here. The drawing is a true all over design, built on a thin scrolling vine that runs the full length of the rug and repeats in mirrored halves to either side of the center line. Off that vine sit large fan-shaped palmettes, 8 and 10 petal rosettes, split serrated leaves that curl back on themselves, and boteh forms drawn with the tip turned like a paisley. Small cypress-like sprays and tiny buds fill the gaps so the burgundy ground never reads as empty. The border system is layered: a wide navy main border carrying alternating palmette cartouches and blossoming vase forms, an ivory inner and outer guard band of linked flowerheads and leaf hooks, and a narrow sky blue stripe that separates field from border and reappears at the outer edge. The signature cartouche breaks the ivory guard band at one end, written in red wool, which is how Mashad workshops marked a piece they were willing to put their name on.

Color Palette in Detail

The ground is a deep burgundy carrying a raspberry cast, a color that Mashad weavers got from madder-family dyes and that shifts noticeably between daylight and lamplight. Against it, the ornament is drawn in a surprisingly broad palette for a rug that reads as red from across a room: ivory and cream for the larger palmettes, rose pink and apricot in their inner petals, two distinct blues, a saturated teal and a deeper navy, plus olive and bottle green in the leaves and a soft antique gold in the smaller blossoms. The main border sits at the dark end, a navy so deep it reads nearly black at a distance, which is exactly what gives the burgundy field its lift. Brown-black outlining defines the leaf edges and keeps the busy field legible. If you are shopping specifically within burgundy Persian rugs, this one leans warm and jewel-toned rather than brick or rust, and it sits comfortably with walnut furniture, brass, and ivory or camel upholstery.

Mashad Origin and Weaving Quality

Mashad is the capital of Khorasan in northeast Persia, a pilgrimage city with a long workshop tradition and access to the long-staple Khorasan wool that gives its rugs their weight and shine. A signed Mashad means a workshop piece rather than village work: the cartouche is a claim of authorship, and the drawing backs it up, with the vine tracked cleanly across more than 13 feet of length without the drift you see when a design is worked from memory. The back, visible in the final photograph, shows even rows and tight, regular knotting across a cotton warp and weft, which is why this rug has held its shape at this scale. At 11'4" x 13'6" it is squarely in the territory of large Persian rugs made for a formal room, wide enough to sit under a full seating group or a 10 seat table with chairs pulled back onto wool.