7'1" x 10'10" Persian Ardebil Rug | Navy Herati Field with Stepped Geometric Medallion | Excellent Condition

This is a hand-knotted Persian Ardebil in the size most American rooms actually need, 7'1" x 10'10", small enough to sit inside a standard room without crowding it and long enough to carry a sofa and two chairs. The wool pile stands at 3/8" and is even from end to end, with crisp selvedges and tight, straight ends, so the rug reads as a piece that was cared for rather than walked flat. Every knot is tied by hand on a cotton foundation, and the drawing holds its line across the full 130" length, which is the mark of a disciplined village weaver working from a reliable graph. The rug ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted Persian piece in wool.

Design and Motifs

The field is filled edge to edge with the herati, known as mahi or fish pattern, a diamond lattice holding a small rosette at each junction with curved fish leaves turned back along the sides. Because it repeats on a diagonal grid, the pattern gives the rug the restful rhythm collectors look for in an all-over herati pattern, and here it is drawn tight, with 4 or 5 distinct motifs inside every repeat. At center sits a stepped geometric medallion, a diamond built from right-angle terraces with a hooked finial above and below, carrying its own inner lattice of 8 petal rosettes. The 2 opposing corners answer it with large stepped spandrels, and the border system runs 3 deep: a narrow inner stripe, a wide main band of linked palmettes and rosettes, and an outer stripe of paired hooks and florets that finishes the whole composition cleanly.

A Study in Navy, Rose and Camel

The ground is a deep navy blue that goes almost black where the pile leans away from the light, and it is this darkness that lets every other shade in the rug register. Against it the lattice is picked out in ivory, soft rose, grey blue and a muted olive, so the field reads as a fine mesh of pale color rather than a flat dark expanse. The medallion is the warm note, a dusty salmon rose heart ringed in slate blue and outlined in ivory, with small accents of dark brown anchoring the center. The corner spandrels shift into brick red, while the main border is camel and sand with a greenish cast, and the outer stripe brings back rose and cornflower blue. For a buyer shopping navy blue Persian rugs, this is the useful kind of navy, dark enough to ground pale furniture and warm enough through the rose and camel to avoid feeling cold.

Ardebil, Northwest Persia, and the Weave

Ardebil sits in the far northwest of Persia, high country near the Caspian slope, and its workshops built their name on exactly this formula: a dark field, a fine herati grid and a stepped medallion drawn with a ruler rather than a curve. The wool from that region is long stapled and springy, which is why Ardebil pile keeps its body under furniture and takes dye with a quiet depth instead of a sheen. Weavers there work on a cotton warp and weft with a symmetrical knot, and the count on this piece is close enough that the lattice stays legible at arm's length, a step above ordinary village work. Among geometric Persian rugs, Ardebil is the one that most reliably balances a tribal backbone with town precision, and this 7'1" x 10'10" example shows both: honest, durable construction under a pattern drawn with real care.