8' x 11'5" Antique Persian Mahal Rug | All Over Herati Floral Lattice | Rustic Red & Navy

This is an old village weaving with real mileage behind it, and the wool shows it: the pile still has body, the surface has that slightly waxy sheen that only comes with decades of use, and the dyes have settled into one another rather than sitting flat. At 8' x 11'5" it lands almost exactly on the 8x11 Persian rug footprint most American rooms are laid out for, so it can carry a full seating group or sit under a 6 to 8 seat table without the front legs hanging off. The pile is a comfortable 3/8" of hand-spun wool on a cotton foundation, the ends show honest light wear typical of a rug of this age, and the body is sound throughout. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted and Persian in origin.

Design and Motifs

The field carries a classic Mahal reading of the Herati theme, drawn as an ivory diamond lattice that runs corner to corner across the whole ground. There is no central medallion: this is a true all over Persian rug design, which is why it reads as calm from standing height and busy only when you kneel down to it. Inside each lattice compartment sits a rosette flanked by curved serrated leaves, with large navy and saffron palmettes anchoring the repeat and 8 petal star rosettes in ivory scattered between them. The drawing is village drawing, bold and slightly irregular, with the vine turning by eye rather than by cartoon, and no two palmettes coloured quite the same. Three borders frame it: a wide indigo main band of rose and ivory palmettes linked by a thin vine, flanked by ivory guard stripes of small flowerheads and a narrow reciprocal outer edge.

A Rustic Red Field with Indigo, Saffron and Rose

The ground is a rustic brick red, warm and slightly earthy rather than cherry, and it moves in soft horizontal bands of abrash where the weaver worked through different dye lots. Against it the indigo is very deep, almost black where it outlines the palmettes and cartouches, lifting to a clear sky blue in the flower heads and leaf tips seen in the close-up photos. Saffron gold is the accent that gives this rug its character, used for whole palmettes and small diamond fillers, and it sits just far enough from the red to glow. Rose pink, soft salmon and ivory carry the lattice and the border flowers, with olive green, a dusty aubergine and a light camel appearing in single leaves and petals. The overall effect is a red and navy rug with a great deal of quiet color inside it, which is why it settles easily over wood, stone or grey tile.

Mahal Weaving on the Sultanabad Plain

Mahal rugs come from the cluster of villages around Sultanabad, now Arak, in central Persia, the same weaving district that produced the Ziegler carpets exported to Europe and America from the late 1800s onward. These are not workshop pieces with 400 knots to the inch. They are village weavings at a moderate knot count, worked with thick, high lanolin mountain wool on a cotton warp, and their reputation rests on exactly that: heavy pile, generous room sizes and an ability to take decades of foot traffic while looking better for it. Look at the back of this one and the weave is even and firmly beaten, the selvedges are original, and the wool has stayed supple rather than going brittle. That combination of large scale drawing and hard wearing construction is why Mahal has remained the decorator's Persian rug for over a century.