8'1" x 8'1" Round Persian Rug | Antique Red Floral Medallion | 1970s, Excellent Condition

A true round at 8'1" across, this hand-knotted Persian rug was woven in the 1970s and has kept a full, even 3/8" wool pile with its original fringes still intact. Rounds in this diameter are far harder to find than rectangles, because the weaver has to redraw the whole medallion and every border course as a circle rather than simply repeating a straight run. Here the drawing holds up: the concentric borders close cleanly all the way around, and the central star medallion sits dead center. The wool has the soft sheen that comes with 50 years of settling, and the piece ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a hand-knotted rug made in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The composition is built in rings. At the center is an 8 point star medallion on a dark ground, filled with a small ivory rosette and fine curling vines, and ringed by a lobed navy frame that pushes pendant-like leaf forms out into the field. Around that, the antique red field carries a dense all-over pattern of palmettes, open rosettes, serrated acanthus leaves and curved paisley forms linked by thin vine tracery, the classic traditional Persian floral vocabulary drawn at small scale so the field never looks empty. A narrow pale guard band separates the field from the wide navy main border, which runs a continuous procession of large rosettes and cabbage-rose clusters set between sage leaves, and that border is in turn framed inside and out by ivory minor borders of running vine. The outermost edge finishes in a thin band of the same deep red, so the circle is closed by color as well as by pattern.

A Closer Look at the Color

The field reads as a deep antique red, a mature wine tone rather than a bright tomato, slightly plum where the light catches the pile and closer to oxblood in the shaded photos. Against it the main border is a near-black navy, dark enough to look almost ink at a glance, which is what gives the rug its strong graphic ring when you stand over it. The pattern work is carried in a muted palette of ivory and oatmeal, dusty rose and salmon pink, soft sage and olive green, with small touches of pale blue and cream in the flower heads. That combination keeps a formal rug from feeling heavy: the pinks and greens soften the red, while the ivory guard bands act as bright outlines. If this palette is what you are after, it sits comfortably within our red and burgundy Persian rugs, and the circular format is a natural fit under a round table in a dining room or centered in a square entry hall.

Persian Origin and Weaving Quality

This is a workshop-style Persian weave on a cotton foundation, with the single-knot wool pile tied tight enough to hold the curved line of the vines and the small flower heads without the drawing turning blocky. The reverse, shown against a 12 inch ruler, gives you the honest measure of it: fine, regular rows, crisp color changes and no slack in the weave, which is the sort of back that tells you the loom was kept under proper tension through all 8 feet of the circle. Features like the clipped low pile, the tight knotting and the aged, settled tones are exactly the markers used to date an Oriental rug, and they place this piece squarely in the 1970s. Five decades on, the wool is denser and glossier than anything woven new today, and the rug is ready to go straight down on the floor.