9'1" x 13' Persian Mashad Rug | Signed Floral Medallion | 1980s Excellent Condition

A signed room-size piece from Khorasan, this 9'1" x 13' Persian Mashad rug was woven in the 1980s on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" hand-knotted wool pile, and the weaver put his name into the red panel at one end rather than hiding it in a corner cartouche. That single detail separates a workshop rug from an anonymous village weaving: someone was willing to be held responsible for the drawing, the dye lots and the finish. The pile is still full and even, the ivory fringe is intact, and the deep red has the clarity you only get from good Khorasan wool. It sits comfortably as one of the more usable large Persian rugs we stock, long enough for a full sofa group and wide enough to run past a 10 seat table. Every rug ships with a certificate of authenticity listing origin, age, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a large navy lobed medallion built out in scalloped lobes, with a coral cartouche at its heart carrying a 4 petal rosette ringed by blue palmettes and small green leaves. Slender pendants drop from the medallion at top and bottom, each ending in a little ivory and apricot bud, so the long axis of the rug reads clearly from the doorway. The red field around it is covered edge to edge with a fine all-over vine: thin stems carrying rosettes, tulip heads, curled serrated leaves and the occasional cloudband, drawn loosely enough to breathe rather than crowding the ground. Navy spandrels close the 4 corners with the same vine work in reverse, and a broad navy main border runs palmettes and ivory arabesques between narrow guard stripes, broken at the center of each side and at every corner by an apricot cartouche holding its own small floral spray. The drawing is curvilinear throughout, with no straight geometric lines anywhere in the layout.

A Deep Red Field Against Navy and Ivory

The field is a deep rich red that leans toward true crimson in daylight and goes darker and more wine-like under lamps, which is exactly how the best red and burgundy Persian rugs behave on a floor. Against it the medallion, spandrels and main border are an inky navy blue, close to black at the edges of the lobes, which is what gives the layout its contrast at a distance. Inside those navy areas the palette opens up: a bright sky blue in the palmette petals, warm ivory and cream in the arabesques and guard stripes, apricot and soft gold in the cartouches, olive and sage green in the leaf tips, and small hits of rose pink and brown in the flower centers. The coral center of the medallion is the warmest note in the rug and reads as a light salmon red rather than orange. Minor natural variation in the red, visible where the dye lots meet, is normal abrash in a hand-dyed Khorasan weaving and adds depth rather than looking patchy.

Mashad, Khorasan and the Quality of the Weave

Mashad sits in Khorasan, in the northeast of Persia, and it is a city of workshops rather than scattered village looms, which is why Persian Mashad rugs are known for large formal medallion layouts carried out at room size without the drawing losing its symmetry. The local wool is long-stapled and takes dye deeply, and the pile here has the soft sheen that Khorasan fleece develops as it settles. On the back the knotting is even and regular, the rows are straight, and the design resolves cleanly at the corners of the border, a reliable tell that the weaver was working from a proper cartoon and not improvising. The 3/8" pile and cotton foundation give the rug real body: heavy enough to lie flat under furniture, supple enough to roll. With the signature in the end panel and the piece still in excellent condition after roughly 4 decades, this is a workshop Mashad that was clearly cared for by its first owner.