8'4" x 11'6" Persian Yazd Rug | Signed Rayati | Coral Rose Floral Field, Ivory Bouquet Border

A weaver who signs a rug 5 times is telling you something. This 8'4" x 11'6" Persian Yazd carries a woven cartouche in the end border reading "Baradar Zane Rayati", and the name Rayati is repeated in a small cartouche at each of the 4 corners, which is the mark of a workshop proud enough of the piece to claim it from every side. The design is a coral rose field scattered with separate floral sprays, willows and cypress trees, framed by a border that breaks with the Yazd norm: instead of a running vine it is a wide ivory band carrying a row of loose flower bouquets, so the border reads like a second garden around the first. The rug is hand-knotted in wool at 260 to 280 knots per square inch on a cotton foundation, it has never been on a floor, the ivory cotton fringes are full at both ends, and the selvages are bound in leather on the back. A certificate of authenticity from Rugs.net accompanies the rug.

Design and Motifs

The field is drawn in the open style the American market loved in the Sarough era: a plain ground with the motifs floating on it and nothing tying them together. At the center a small diamond medallion is built from a rosette with 4 radiating flower stems and a pointed pendant at each end. Around it sit 6 staggered rows of floral sprays, each one a bunch of 5-petal blossoms and buds on a curling leafy stem, drawn in ivory, sky blue, rose and navy with mustard gold in the stems and leaves. At the top and bottom center a footed vase holds a tall cypress of navy and blue leaves, and halfway down each long side a weeping willow with a brown trunk and ivory branches drapes over a small stand, with a second pair of cypress vases near the top corners. The inner guard is a navy band with a ribbon of ivory and red rosettes, followed by a narrow gray green stripe with small blue and pink flowerheads. The main border is the reason to look twice: a wide ivory ground with alternating round bouquets and upright flowering sprigs in red, navy, blue and sage, spaced out like specimens on a page rather than linked by a vine, and at each corner a small cartouche woven with the name Rayati. A second navy band with palmettes and split leaves and a final ivory guard with a red and navy vine close the frame, and a plain coral outer selvage finishes it.

Colors of This Coral Rose and Ivory Yazd Rug

The field is a coral rose, a warm pink with a faint coral glow, and it is worth saying plainly because the color is unusual on a Persian rug of this size and because cameras push it toward red. Seen in the room it is softer and pinker than the wide photographs suggest, and because most of the field is left plain it reads as one wash of color with the pile direction showing as a gentle shift from rose to peach. The main border sits on a pale straw ivory that leans to cream in daylight and to a light gold under lamps, and the pairing of coral rose and ivory is what gives the rug its light, formal look. The 2 navy bands on either side of the ivory border are a deep midnight navy, and the same navy returns in the leaves and outlines of every spray. Inside the flowers the palette stays gentle: powder and sky blue in the petals, a dusty rose pink, a pale sage and gray green in the leaves, mustard gold in the stems and vase feet, a burgundy red in the border blossoms, and a warm cream for the highlights. Nothing in the rug is harsh, which is why it sits as easily in a pale modern room as in a traditional one. The back shows the same colors in a lighter key with no bleeding, and the knot rows are close and even.

Yazd Weaving and the Rayati Signature

Yazd is a desert city in central Persia, roughly between Isfahan and Kerman, and it has been a textile town for centuries, first for silk brocade and then, from the 20th century, for rugs. Yazd workshops weave on cotton foundations with good wool and take their designs from their neighbors, Kashan medallions and Kerman florals above all, but they weave them at a higher knot count than most village work, and at 260 to 280 knots per square inch this piece sits at the fine end of the town's output. A signed Yazd is less common than a signed Isfahan or Qum, and one signed in the cartouche and all 4 corners is rarer still, which places it with the workshop pieces that were made to order rather than for the bazaar. In the room-size class of 8x11 Persian rugs it is a piece for a living room, dining room or bedroom where the open coral rose field can carry furniture without losing the design, and where the signed border will be seen.