8'4" x 11'1" Persian Isfahan Rug | Red Field Floral Medallion | Wool and Silk, Never Used

This 8'4" x 11'1" rug is a classic city piece in the Isfahan idiom: a deep red field carrying a single lobed medallion, drawn in wool with silk worked into the brighter flowers so the pattern shifts as you walk past it. The pile is a tight 1/4", knotted on a cotton foundation, and the rug has never been on a floor, so the ends, the sides and the full depth of the pile are exactly as they left the loom. At 8'4" by 11'1" it settles naturally under a full seating group or a 8 seat dining table without crowding the walls, and it is one of the more usable proportions among 8x11 Persian rugs. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an 8 petal rosette set inside a navy star medallion, with cream cartouche shapes and small palmettes radiating out from it and a pendant finial at each end. Around that medallion the red field is filled with a fluid arabesque: thin scrolling vines, split leaves, and rows of open palmettes and rosettes that mirror each other across both axes rather than repeating mechanically. All 4 corners carry green spandrels drawn with the same vine work, which is what closes the composition and tells you the cartoon was resolved before a single knot was tied. The wide main border runs a floral meander of alternating palmettes and blossoms on a very dark ground, flanked on both sides by narrow ivory guard stripes of linked flowerheads, then an outer red selvage. The drawing stays curvilinear throughout, with no broken or angular lines anywhere in the field.

Reading the Color: Red Field, Near Black Border

The field is a true crimson red, clear rather than brick, and it reads slightly deeper in the overhead photograph than it does on the floor shots where daylight hits the silk. The main border is so dark a navy that it registers as black from standing height, which is what gives the red its punch. Between those 2 poles sits a full secondary palette: sage and olive green through the spandrels and the leaf work, ivory and cream in the guard borders and the larger blossoms, soft gold and apricot in the palmette centers, and small touches of light sky blue and rose scattered across the field. The silk content sits mostly in the pale flowers and the vine outlines, so those elements catch light and lift off the wool ground. Nothing here is washed or chemically toned down; the color is the dye, at full strength.

Isfahan: Central Persia and the Weaving Standard

Isfahan sits in central Persia and has been a workshop weaving center since the Safavid court set up its looms there in the 16th century. The reputation of the town rests almost entirely on drawing: the curved line, the continuous vine, the way a medallion resolves into its corners. That kind of precision only survives at a high knot count, which is why Persian Isfahan rugs are woven fine, on cotton or silk warps, with silk used to outline and highlight rather than to fill. The back of this piece shows an even, tight knot bed with the pattern legible from the reverse, the mark of a workshop loom rather than a village one. Combine that with a low clipped pile and untouched wool, and you have a rug built to be walked on for generations while the drawing stays crisp.