9'10" x 12'8" Persian Rug | Traditional Floral Medallion | 1980s Hand-Knotted Wool

This 9'10" x 12'8" Persian rug was hand-knotted in the 1980s on a cotton foundation with a pure wool pile, and it is the kind of piece that sells itself the moment it is unrolled: a deep red field, a dark navy medallion at dead center, and floral drawing that never repeats lazily. The wool has the slight sheen that comes only from good fleece and decades of settling, and the pile is still full corner to corner. At just under 10 by 13 it covers a full seating group without crowding the walls, which is exactly why 10x13 Persian rugs in this format stay the hardest size to find in good condition. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic central medallion formula drawn in the Kashan manner: a lobed navy medallion outlined in gold, with a soft camel rosette core built from 8 petals and small sky blue flowerheads, finished top and bottom by pendant cartouches on the long axis. Matching navy spandrels fill the 4 corners, each packed with palmettes and curling arabesques against the same gold outline. Between medallion and border, the red field carries an all-over network of thin vines, serrated leaves, rosettes and split palmettes worked at a scale small enough that you keep finding new flowers in it. The main border is a navy ground of alternating palmettes and rosettes, flanked by a mid blue guard stripe of rose heads on a meandering ivory vine and a narrow reciprocal edge, which is what keeps such a busy field looking orderly rather than noisy.

A Deep Red Field Worked Against Navy and Sky Blue

The field is a true deep red, closer to a rich cherry than to brick, and it holds its saturation right through the close-up photographs. Against it the medallion, spandrels and main border read as a navy so dark it goes near black in low light, which gives the rug its weight. The relief comes from the mid blue guard border and the pale sky blue flowerheads scattered across the field, plus gold outlining on the medallion, the spandrels and the vine work. Secondary tones include soft camel and rose in the medallion core and the corner palmettes, ivory in the vine scroll, and small touches of green and old gold in the leaves. The fringe and warp are natural ivory, and the selvage is bound in the same red as the field.

Woven in Persia, City Workshop Quality

Everything about the construction points to a town workshop rather than village work: the curved line of the vines, the symmetry of the 4 spandrels, the disciplined border repeat and the even knot count visible on the back, where the weave is tight and regular with no crowding at the ends. That level of drawing only holds together on a well tensioned loom with an experienced weaver following a cartoon, and it is the reason a rug like this still lies flat and true after 40 years. A 1980s weaving date puts it squarely in the last strong period of Persian workshop production; if you want to understand how weavers, dealers and collectors read age from wool, weave and dye behaviour, our guide on how to date an oriental rug walks through the same checks we ran on this piece.