9'10" x 16'5" Persian Isfahan Rug | Brick Red Floral Medallion | Signed Cartouche, Excellent Condition

This 9'10" x 16'5" Persian Isfahan rug is a workshop piece, hand-knotted in fine wool on a cotton foundation and closed with a woven signature cartouche set into the upper border. The pile stands a full 3/8", the surface is even from one end to the other, and the condition is excellent with no repairs, no low spots and no bleeding between the reds and the ivory. A rug this long belongs with the oversize Persian rugs, because 16'5" of length is what a long living room, a wide great room or a full dining table with the chairs pulled back actually needs. It ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and construction.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is classic Isfahan: a star-shaped central medallion built from radiating palmettes and curled leaves, with a small rosette at its exact center and slender pendants running off each end into the field. Around it the brick red ground is covered edge to edge with an all-over lattice of palmettes, lanceolate leaves, rosettes and thin arabesque vines that never repeat a motif twice in the same position. The 4 corners carry ivory spandrels filled with dense floral scrollwork and a shaped inner frame that lifts the medallion field away from the border. The main navy border runs an alternating palmette and rosette turning vine, flanked on both sides by narrow ivory guard stripes of small linked blossoms and a fine meander at the outermost edge. The signature cartouche sits in the ivory field of one end border, drawn in navy script on a pale ground, which is how a workshop closes a commission rather than a village loom.

Brick Red Field with Navy, Ivory and Sky Blue

The field is a deep brick red, warmer and slightly earthier than a true crimson, and the wool takes it with a soft sheen that shifts from tomato to garnet as you walk past it. Against that ground the palette is unusually cool for a red rug: chalky ivory and cream carry most of the floral drawing, sky blue and pale periwinkle fill the larger petals, and a saturated navy outlines the medallion, the spandrel edges and the main border. Warm accents are used sparingly and precisely, gold and saffron in the medallion core, rust and terracotta in the smaller blossoms, a few points of clear yellow and soft rose scattered through the border rosettes. The effect is a red rug that reads jewel-like rather than heavy, and the ivory guard stripes give the whole field a bright outline that keeps the length of the rug from looking dark on a wood floor.

Isfahan Weaving and Workshop Quality

Isfahan sits in central Persia and has been a weaving capital since the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century. Its reputation rests on draftsmanship, the curved line, the flowing vine, the symmetry that holds true across 16 feet of length, and that only works when the knot count is high enough to let the designer draw a curve instead of a step. The back of this rug shows the tight, regular knotting and the fine cotton warps that make that drawing possible, with clear definition and no loose or uneven rows. The wool is the soft, lustrous grade Isfahan weavers favor, cut to 3/8" so the pile holds its body underfoot while keeping the motifs sharp. A cartouche signature on a rug of this scale means a named workshop stood behind it, which is the difference between a decorative floor covering and a piece meant to stay in a family.