7' x 10' Persian Tabriz Rug | Joshagan Panel Design | 60 Raj Fine Weave, 1980s

Woven in the 1980s, this 7' x 10' Persian Tabriz rug takes the old Joshagan panel layout and redraws it at a Tabriz knot count, which is what separates it from the village versions of the same idea. The coral red field is broken into a lattice of octagons and diamonds, every compartment carrying its own miniature bouquet, and a navy star medallion with four weeping willows anchors the center. The pile is fine wool clipped to 3/8" over a cotton foundation, and the rug has never been used, so the coral reads clean and even from one end to the other. It ships with a certificate of authenticity. Buyers comparing 7x10 Persian rugs will notice immediately how much finer the drawing is here than the format usually allows.

Design and Motifs

The Joshagan scheme works by repetition with variation: dozens of octagonal and lozenge compartments, each outlined in ivory and filled with a different small cluster of stars, crosses and 8 petal rosettes, so that the eye keeps finding new detail inside what looks at first like one continuous pattern. The navy center medallion is a stepped star holding a small coral rosette cartouche, flanked on 4 sides by stylized weeping willows drawn in cream, plum and gold on a deep blue ground scattered with saffron florets. Ivory spandrels open out at the corners of the field, and each one carries a large slanted willow or cypress bough in caramel and blue, an unusual touch that gives the corners as much interest as the medallion. The main border runs on a soft sky blue ground with a repeating lattice of small blossoms interrupted by framed ivory panels of 8 petal rosettes, and it is contained by ivory guard stripes of connected vine and reciprocal trefoil. Ivory fringe and a red selvedge finish the 4 sides.

Coral Red, Navy and Sky Blue Palette

The field is a warm coral red, closer to terracotta and salmon than to the deep madder used in most Tabriz production, and that lighter ground is what makes the rug read bright rather than heavy in daylight. Against it the medallion is a true dark navy, the deepest value in the rug, with saffron gold and ivory florets set inside it for contrast. The border shifts the whole piece cooler: a chalky sky blue ground with cream panels, wine red blossoms and small touches of ochre. Through the compartments of the field you find cornflower and powder blue rosettes, ivory stars, sage and grass green stems, soft plum and aubergine grids, and peach and pale rose accents, all of them small enough to stay decorative rather than busy. There is no harsh abrash across the field, and because the rug was never walked on the pile still holds its full luster, so the coral catches light differently as you move around it.

Tabriz Weaving and the Joshagan Tradition

Tabriz sits in the northwest of Persia and has been the country's most disciplined commercial weaving city for well over a century, measuring fineness in Raj, the number of knots across a gereh of about 2.75 in. At 60 Raj, roughly 400 knots per square inch, this piece is in the grade the better Tabriz workshops reserve for detailed work, and the panel design needs that density: the tiny crosses, stars and stems inside each compartment simply cannot be resolved at a coarser count. The Joshagan pattern itself comes from a village south of Kashan, near Isfahan, where the compartment field has been woven for generations. Tabriz weavers adopted it, tightened the drawing, added the star medallion with willows and rebuilt it on a cotton foundation with the firm, flat handle the city is known for. The result is a rug with village warmth in its pattern and workshop precision in its execution, built to take decades of real use.