8'9" x 11'9" Persian Kerman Rug | Burgundy Field, Blue Floral Medallion | 1970s Vintage

Woven in the 1970s and kept off the floor for most of its life, this 8'9" x 11'9" Persian rug still carries the low, velvety surface that only good Kerman wool gives you. The drawing is confident and the field is largely open, which is the harder way to weave: with no all over pattern to hide behind, every knot of the burgundy ground is visible, and here it stays smooth and even from end to end. At just under 9 x 12, it lands in the most useful bracket in the house, so if you have been comparing 9x12 Persian rugs this one covers the same footprint with a slightly narrower shoulder. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

A large starburst medallion sits dead center, built in overlapping lobed rings on a mid-blue ground, with a pale gold core holding a small dark rosette and a ring of curling vine. Slender pendants drop from the top and bottom points into two smaller blue cartouches, and beyond those the field opens out. The 4 corners carry big cloud-shaped clusters of arabesque and palmette, drawn in ivory, soft gold and two shades of blue, and between them the weaver scattered loose sprays of blossoms, cypress-like leaf sprigs and tiny 5 petal flowers on curling stems. The border system is layered: a wide navy main band of rosettes, palmettes and split-leaf scroll, flanked by rose and salmon floral guard stripes and narrow reciprocal zigzag minor bands, with a blue wrapped selvedge finishing the edge.

A Burgundy Field Lit by Blue and Green

The ground is a deep burgundy that leans plum where the pile lies one way and toward wine red where it lies the other, which is what gives the open field its movement. Against it the medallion reads in cornflower and denim blue, with pale sky blue picked out in the smaller flowerheads and a buttery gold at the center. The corner clusters lighten the composition considerably: ivory and cream outlines, gold scrollwork, salmon pink and rose petals, and clear leaf green in the stems and sprigs. The border swaps the balance, putting a dark navy ground under coral, rose, ivory and blue florals, so the eye moves from a dark frame, through a light and busy corner, into a quiet burgundy center. Green appears throughout as an accent rather than a mass, and the whole palette stays soft rather than bright.

Kerman Weaving in Southeast Persia

Kerman sits in southeast Persia and has been a workshop city for centuries, known for curvilinear floral drawing, pictorial and garden borders, and a wool that takes dye with unusual depth. City looms there worked from a full cartoon rather than memory, which is why the medallion halves mirror so precisely and the border repeats stay in register around all 4 corners. The back of this piece, shown in the photographs, reads clean and regular, with the knot rows tight enough to hold the fine vine work in the corner clusters and the weave supple in the hand rather than board stiff. If you want to understand how a weave, a palette and a back tag together place a piece in time, our guide on how to date an Oriental rug is worth reading alongside this listing. The original dealer tag is still attached to the end, reading 8.9 x 11.9.