7' x 10'6" Persian Mahal Rug | All-Over Palmette Design on Red Field | Excellent Condition, 2000s

This 7' x 10'6" Persian Mahal was woven in the 2000s and it is a rug built to be used, not nursed. Instead of one central medallion, the whole field carries a repeating, mirrored pattern of palmettes and rosettes, so the drawing reads correctly from every side of the room and nothing important disappears under a sofa or a coffee table. The pile is a generous 3/8" of wool on a cotton foundation, which gives the rug weight underfoot and a firm, slightly chunky handle typical of good village weaving from the Sultanabad district. The wool still has its sheen, the pile is even from end to end, the selvedges are sound and the ivory fringe is clean and intact, which is why the condition grades excellent. At this proportion it sits naturally in the 7x10 Persian rugs range that suits most standard living and dining spaces. The rug ships with a certificate of authenticity recording its origin, materials, age and exact measurements.

Design and Motifs

The field is laid out as a classic all-over design, with the composition mirrored top to bottom and left to right rather than built around a single medallion. The dominant motifs are large palmettes with deeply serrated navy outlines, each one wrapped around a small hexagonal cartouche that holds a stylized green sprig, and between them sit elongated ivory leaf forms with dark centers that read almost like a boteh drawn on its side. Down the long axis run 8 petal rosettes with coppery centers, flanked by curling navy vine tendrils and pairs of small cream birds or leaf hooks. Scattered through the ground are light blue star rosettes, little cruciform flowerheads, tulip sprays rising from short stems and sage green serrated leaves that keep the open field busy without crowding it. The main border is a navy ground carrying alternating fan shaped palmettes and rose colored blossoms linked by a continuous scrolling vine, with the corners turned cleanly so the pattern resolves rather than collides. Narrow guard stripes on either side run a small paisley and floret repeat in light blue, cream and rose, and a reciprocal zigzag stripe separates the border from the field.

A Warm Red Field Framed in Deep Navy

The ground is a warm madder red that leans toward coral salmon where the light hits the pile and darkens to a true brick rose in the shadowed areas, the kind of tonal movement you only get from a wool pile dyed in small lots. Against it the border reads as a deep, almost blackened navy blue, and that contrast is what makes the drawing pop from across the room. Inside the palmettes and leaf forms the weaver used cream and ivory for the outlines, which keeps the pattern legible, with soft rose pink in the border blossoms and beige to sand tones in the larger palmette bodies. The secondary colors do the detail work: a clear light blue in the star rosettes and the guard stripe paisleys, sage and olive green in the leaves and the small sprigs inside the cartouches, and warm brown with a touch of copper in the rosette centers. There is no white, no bright synthetic tone and no harsh orange anywhere, so the palette stays settled. Buyers shopping red Persian rugs should know this one is the warmer, rosier end of red rather than the deep burgundy end.

Mahal Weaving in the Sultanabad District

Mahal is the trade name for rugs woven in the villages of the Sultanabad district around Arak in west central Persia, the same weaving region that produced the large scale, boldly drawn carpets that Western buyers have chased since the late 19th century. Within that regional family the finer, more tightly knotted city work is sold as Persian Sarough, while Mahal covers the sturdier village weave: a moderate knot count by design, heavy double wefts between the rows, thick local wool and a slightly larger scale of drawing. That is not a compromise, it is the point. The looser knot and the long 3/8" pile are what give a Mahal its depth of color, its soft handle and its reputation for surviving decades of real traffic. The palmettes on this piece are drawn with confident, slightly rounded curves rather than the stiff angular line of a purely tribal rug, which tells you the weaver worked from a proper cartoon in a village workshop rather than from memory. Woven in the 2000's, it has barely begun its working life.