4'7" x 6'3" Persian Feraghan Rug | All-Over Boteh on Ivory | 1930s Antique

This is a small antique Persian Feraghan from the 1930s, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and still carrying a full, even pile that feels dense and cool under the hand. At 4'7" x 6'3" it is a true scatter size, the kind of piece that was woven for a private room rather than a reception hall, and the drawing has the tight discipline of a good village workshop: 5 columns of boteh marching up an ivory ground, each row offset and mirrored so the eye keeps moving. Nearly a century of use has softened the wool into a low sheen that shows clearly in the pile close-ups. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, age, materials and size.

Design and Motifs

The field is a classic all-over boteh design, the teardrop paisley that Feraghan weavers used as often as the herati. Each boteh is outlined in dark navy, filled with a gold or olive core and sprinkled with small red and blue dots, and every one sits above a tiny flowering stem so the field reads as rows of budding plants rather than loose ornament. Between them run curling vine tendrils, split palmettes in rust and small four petal blossoms in pale pink. There is no medallion and no open ground, which is exactly right for this type. The border system is 3 bands: a broad ivory main border carrying alternating pink lotus blooms, blue rosettes and slender cypress-like leaf sprays, framed inside and out by medium blue guard stripes with red star rosettes at measured intervals. The corners resolve cleanly, a sign the weaver worked from a properly drawn cartoon.

A Study in Ivory, Blue and Rust

The ground is a warm undyed ivory that has mellowed toward cream, and it does the heavy lifting here, keeping a densely drawn field light and open. Against it the blues carry the rhythm: a soft medium blue in the larger boteh and the guard stripes, with small accents of deep indigo scattered through the vinework. The reds are not one color but two, a brick rust in the palmettes and leaf forms and a clearer coral pink in the lotus heads of the main border. Olive and sage green fill the leaf sprays and the interiors of several boteh, with dry gold running through the paisley cores. Soft blush pink appears in the smallest buds. Seen in raking light, as in the folded-pile photographs, the wool takes a quiet luster that deepens every one of these shades. If you are collecting toward a room in this palette, it sits naturally with ivory and beige Persian rugs.

The Feraghan District and This Weave

Feraghan, or Farahan, is a plain in central Persia north of Arak, and its villages built their reputation in the 19th century on finely drawn repeating field patterns woven on a cotton foundation with the hard local wool. The best of that tradition carried into the early 20th century, and this rug belongs to that later run: a Persian knot on a tightly packed cotton warp, short clipped pile, and small-scale drawing held steady across the full 6'3" length without the pattern drifting. The back shown in the final photograph tells the story better than any adjective, with crisp individual knots and a clean, tight weave face. Wear is even and the pile is full, which is uncommon in a piece of this age. For anyone weighing when a rug of this kind was made, our guide on how to date an antique Oriental rug walks through the same clues we used here.