6'8" x 9'10" Persian Isfahan Rug | Ivory Floral Medallion | 1980s Wool Pile

This 6'8" x 9'10" Persian Isfahan rug was knotted in the 1980s and has come through four decades with its pile, its color and, most importantly, its drawing intact. The field is a warm ivory, almost the shade of unbleached wool, carrying a layered floral medallion in burgundy, rose and sage, and the whole composition is framed by a deep madder red border of palmettes and serrated leaves. It is formal without being dark, which is the trait buyers keep asking for and rarely find in a rug of this age. The footprint is the most useful one we sell, and anyone comparing 7x10 Persian rugs will notice how uncommon a clean ivory ground of this vintage really is. Every rug ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an 8 petal rosette set in a pale sage disc, ringed by cusped rose and ivory cartouches and then by a broad burgundy surround that reads almost as a second medallion. Above and below it, matching pendant palmettes drop into the field on thin stems, and the 4 corners repeat a quarter of the same drawing as spandrels, so the eye closes the composition even though the ivory ground runs open between the motifs. Around all of it the field is filled with curved arabesque vinework, split leaves, small carnations and rosebuds, mirrored precisely across both the long and the short axis. The main border alternates large palmettes with feathered ivory leaves on red, and it is fenced by narrow guard stripes of red rosettes on ivory and a fine navy sawtooth. Nothing in the field is drawn with a straight line, which is exactly the point of this design tradition.

A Study in Ivory, Madder Red and Navy

The ground is a soft buttery ivory with a slight honey warmth where the light catches the pile, and it shifts a full tone depending on which end of the rug you stand at, the sign of a natural wool ground rather than a bleached one. Against it the medallion works through burgundy and aubergine into bright rose, shell pink and a chalky ivory, with small strikes of orange and olive green at the tips of the leaves. The border is a true madder red, warm and slightly tomato in daylight, and it is outlined throughout in deep navy that also appears as pinpoint rosettes and as the sawtooth guard stripe. Secondary tones of dove grey, sage, soft brown and pale gold sit inside the larger palmettes and keep the red from reading flat. Overall the palette is light enough for a cream or pale grey room and warm enough to hold a room with dark wood floors, as the setting photograph shows.

Isfahan Weaving in Central Persia

Isfahan sits in central Persia and has been the reference point for court weaving since the Safavid workshops of the 16th century. Its reputation does not rest on wool alone but on draftsmanship: the flowing vine, the true curve, the medallion that lands dead center. That standard is what separates Persian Isfahan rugs from looser village work, and this piece keeps to it. Turn the rug over and the back shows an even, tightly packed grid on a cotton foundation, with the pattern legible knot for knot, which is how the weaver held such fine floral detail at this scale. The wool is well spun and still has luster in the pile after roughly 40 years, and the selvedges and fringes are sound. It is a working rug that was made to be looked at closely.