12'5" x 20'9" Persian Rug | Navy Blue Floral Field | Oversize Palace Size Traditional Medallion

This is a genuine palace piece: 12'5" x 20'9" of hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation, drawn in the classic Persian formula of a lobed medallion floating on a densely scrolled navy field inside a wide terracotta border. Rugs this long were woven to order for rooms that most houses do not have, which is why surviving examples in this condition are scarce, and why the market for oversize Persian rugs stays so tight. The pile is even from end to end, the colors are clear, and the drawing holds its symmetry across nearly 21 feet, which takes disciplined weaving off a full cartoon. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a pointed lobed medallion with an ivory core, ringed in salmon and rust, finished top and bottom with slender pendants that reach out into the field. Inside it sits a small rosette surrounded by mirrored palmettes and curling leaves, and the whole medallion is outlined in a fine ivory contour line that lifts it off the dark ground. The field around it is not left open for a moment: continuous vine scrolls carry large serrated palmettes, rosettes, cypress-like leaf forms and small blossoms in an allover rhythm that repeats in perfect mirror across both axes. The 4 corners carry matching spandrels worked in the same vocabulary rather than a plain ground, so the eye reads one unbroken garden. The main border runs a chain of linked palmettes and arabesque tendrils, flanked by narrow guard stripes of trefoil and reciprocal blossom in light blue and ivory, and a plain navy outer edge finishes the rug cleanly.

The Navy Blue Field and Its Terracotta Frame

The ground is a deep midnight navy that reads almost black in low light and opens into true indigo where the light rakes across the pile, and it is the anchor for everything else. Against it the weaver worked a full palette: soft salmon and brick rust in the palmettes, chalky ivory in the outlines and the larger blossoms, sage and olive green in the leaves, muted gold and caramel in the smaller flower heads, and a clear sky blue that appears in the guard stripes and in scattered petals. The border shifts the balance completely, a warm terracotta rust that has aged into a slightly coral tone, printed with ivory and navy floral work, so the rug frames itself in warmth. This combination is the reason collectors search out navy blue Persian rugs for formal rooms: the dark field hides traffic, and the rust border pulls wood tones, leather and brass into the scheme without competing with them.

Woven in Persia at Palace Scale

This is city workshop weaving rather than village or tribal work. The curved line, the floating medallion with its contour outline, the mirrored spandrels and the cotton warp and weft all point to a Persian town loom working from a paper cartoon, with a team of weavers on a single beam wide enough to carry 149 inches of width. The back photograph shows tight, regular knotting and fine ivory cotton wefts packed straight, which is what keeps a rug of this length from drifting out of square, and the selvages and ends are sound. The wool is good quality and still carries its natural sheen, so the pile has body underfoot rather than the dry feel of an over-washed piece. At 12'5" x 20'9" it is sized for a long formal dining room, a great room, a library or a hotel lobby, and despite the weight it ships free anywhere in the 50 states.