9'11" x 12'9" Persian Sabzevar Rug | Red Field with Navy Floral Medallion | Khorasan Wool

This 9'11" x 12'9" Sabzevar sits right in the sweet spot for a full room: it reads as one of the classic 10x13 Persian rugs, wide enough to carry a sofa group or a 10 seat table without the legs ever finding bare floor. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, still thick and even across the whole field, and the drawing is the dense floral style that the Khorasan workshops do so well. Handle the back and the knotting is regular from selvedge to selvedge, with no repairs, no reweaves and no bare patches. It ships with a certificate of authenticity recording size, origin, materials and construction.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the full formal scheme. A lobed navy medallion holds a stepped ivory cartouche at its center, and inside that sits a small 8 petal rosette in pink and sage. Pendants reach north and south from the medallion into the field, each one finished with a palmette and a pair of curling leaves. The red ground around it is not left open: it is filled with thin vine work carrying rosettes, tulip heads, carnations and serrated leaves, drawn small so the field stays busy but never crowded. The 4 corner spandrels are navy with rust orange cloudband scrolls and small ivory boxes at the top of each one. Framing all of it is a wide navy main border of alternating blossoms and leaf forms, flanked by salmon and copper guard stripes and a narrow outer band of reciprocal sawtooth, the kind of multi stripe finish that makes the rug look complete on every side.

Color: Tomato Red Against Indigo Navy

The field is a clear tomato red that warms toward brick where the light catches the pile, the tone that puts this piece squarely among red and burgundy Persian rugs rather than the darker burgundy end of the range. Against it the medallion, spandrels and main border run a deep indigo navy that photographs almost black in the border and opens up to true blue in the medallion. Between those two anchors the weaver worked a soft palette: chalky ivory for the cartouche and the border blossoms, powder blue for the scrolling tendrils, dusty rose and pale pink in the flower heads, sage and olive green in the leaves, with small hits of gold, apricot and rust orange in the corner scrolls. A faint natural abrash moves through the red field, a sign of small dye lot changes in hand spun wool, and it keeps the large expanse of color alive rather than flat.

Sabzevar and the Khorasan Weaving Tradition

Sabzevar is a town in Khorasan, the northeastern province of Persia, west of the provincial capital and historically supplied by the same wool market and the same cartoon makers. Its weavers work in the drawing style of Persian Mashad rugs, the curved medallion, the dense floral ground and the generous room sizes, and for that reason Sabzevar pieces are usually grouped and sold with them. The Khorasan advantage is the wool: long staple, high in lanolin, which is why a rug of this age still has a full 3/8" pile and a soft sheen under foot. Anyone comparing this piece to the regional group will find the background in our guide to Persian Mashad weaving. On the back, shown here with a ruler for scale, the knots are tight and uniform, the horizontal rows sit straight, and the finished selvedges and intact ends confirm a well made workshop rug that has been looked after.