9'10" x 13'1" Persian Mashad Rug | Deep Red Field, Navy Floral Medallion | 1980's Wool, Excellent

Woven in the 1980's in the Khorasan province of northeast Persia, this 9'10" x 13'1" piece is a textbook example of what makes Persian Mashad rugs so collectible: a deep red field drawn over every inch with flowering vine, a navy surround, and an ivory star medallion at the center. The pile is 3/8" wool with the dense, slightly glossy handle that good Khorasan fleece gives, knotted on a cotton foundation and still full and even after roughly four decades, which is why it grades out in excellent condition. At nearly 10 by 13 feet it sits squarely in the most usable room size made, and it belongs with the best 10x13 Persian rugs we stock. A certificate of authenticity is issued with the rug, confirming it as a hand-knotted Persian Mashad.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Mashad formula, and it is drawn with real confidence. At the center sits a small ivory rosette medallion, ringed first by a scalloped orange-rust frame and then by a navy lobed halo that throws out curling split-leaf arabesques in all 4 directions. Above and below the medallion are navy pendant cartouches, and the 4 corners carry deep navy spandrels filled with palmettes, serrated leaves and blossom heads, each anchored by a small brick-red lozenge. The red ground between all of this is never left empty: fine vine tracery links rosettes, lotus palmettes and curved saz leaves across the whole field in an all-over floral rhythm. The main border is a navy band of alternating boteh paisley and palmette cartouches, flanked by ivory vine guard stripes and finished with narrow reciprocal minor bands, so the pattern steps cleanly from field to edge without crowding.

Color: Deep Red, Navy Blue, Green and Ivory

The field is a deep cochineal-leaning red, rich rather than orange, the tone that collectors of red and burgundy Persian rugs look for because it reads warm under lamplight and holds its depth in daylight. Against it the borders and spandrels are a dark inky navy, almost black where the pile falls away from the light, which gives the whole rug its frame and weight. The drawing inside those dark grounds is where the palette opens up: ivory and soft cream outline nearly every leaf, with clear turquoise and blue-green accents, dusty rose, pale pink, old gold and small notes of brick orange in the medallion ring. The green reads as a cool blue-green woven into the floral work rather than as a block of color. The close-up photographs show how much of this detail is only a few knots wide, and how the wool's natural luster shifts the reds and blues as you walk around the rug.

Mashad: City Weaving in Khorasan

Mashad is the great city of Khorasan in northeast Persia, a pilgrimage center with a long tradition of workshop weaving aimed at large formal room sizes exactly like this one. The region's sheep produce a long-staple, high-luster fleece, and Mashad weavers put it to use in a heavy, tightly packed pile that wears for generations instead of thinning early. The weave here is city work rather than village work: the curved line of the arabesques, the symmetry of the medallion and the even spacing of the border cartouches all depend on a drawn cartoon followed knot by knot across 13 feet of length. Look at the back and the ends and you see the same discipline, with a straight, closely beaten foundation and a cleanly finished selvage. That combination of Khorasan wool, workshop drawing and 1980's condition is what makes a large Mashad such a practical heirloom.