9'1" x 12'3" Persian Qazvin Rug | Tabriz Floral Medallion Design | 1980s, Excellent Condition

This is a room size Persian Qazvin woven in the 1980s, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and drawn in the classic Tabriz manner: a single star medallion floating on a berry red field that is packed edge to edge with curving vine, palmettes and small blossoms. It measures 9'1" x 12'3", one of the most usable proportions in the market and a natural fit for buyers shopping 9x12 Persian rugs. The pile is full and even from selvedge to selvedge, the fringes are original and intact, and the handle is firm rather than floppy, which is the giveaway of a tight beat-down and a serious weave. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an 8 point star medallion built in layers: an inner 8 petal rosette in ivory, rose and sage, ringed by a black outline, then a broad sky blue band filled with scrolling arabesques and small framed flowerheads, and finished with pendant cartouches top and bottom. Around it the field runs as a true all over composition of thin curved vines, split leaves, lotus palmettes and shaded rosettes, with a pair of large open spandrels at all 4 corners carrying a denser cluster of blossoms and leaf work. This is the drawing vocabulary of Persian Tabriz rugs, curvilinear rather than angular, and it only holds together when the knot count is high enough to turn a clean circle. The main border repeats alternating palmettes and rosettes on a navy ground, flanked by ivory guard stripes with a running vine and a narrow reciprocal minor stripe.

A Berry Red Field Against Navy and Sky Blue

The field is a deep berry red with a faint cherry lift where the light catches the wool, warmer and less orange than a Heriz red and less brown than a Sarough. Against it the medallion reads in a soft sky blue that has clearly mellowed, with teal shading in the arabesques and a near black outline that keeps it crisp. The main border is a true navy, dark enough to frame the field firmly, and the ivory guard stripes give the eye a bright line between the two. Spandrels shift to camel and sand with pale blue and rose blossoms, and the detail work across the field pulls in ivory, dusty rose, pink, sage green and small touches of gold. It is a saturated, formal palette that belongs squarely among red and burgundy Persian rugs and sits easily over both light oak and dark hardwood.

Qazvin: Weaving Town and Weave Quality

Qazvin sits northwest of Tehran on the old road toward Tabriz, and its workshops built their reputation on exactly this kind of piece: city drawing, cotton foundation, good highland wool and a dense weave aimed at buyers who wanted Tabriz refinement in a durable room size rug. The back photograph shows the point clearly, with small tidy knot nodes, a fine cotton warp and weft and a design that stays legible from the reverse, all signs of careful workshop production rather than village work. Wool of this era from the region takes dye well and hardens with use, which is why a 1980s piece can still show a full pile after four decades on the floor. If you want to understand how weave, dye and wear combine to place a rug in time, our guide on how to date an Oriental rug walks through the same tells we used here.