9'4" x 12'10" Persian Mashad Rug | Burgundy Field, Kashan Medallion | 1980s, Excellent Condition

This is a workshop-quality Persian Mashad rug from the 1980s, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and measuring 9'4" x 12'10". It reads a little longer than standard 9x12 Persian rugs, which makes it a natural fit under a full seating group or a 10 seat table without the field disappearing under furniture. The wool is glossy, the pile is even from end to end, and the colors have the depth that only good Khorasan wool and proper dyeing give you. Condition is excellent with no wear, no repair and clean original ends and sides. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the classic Kashan medallion design as Mashad weavers interpret it: a large lobed navy medallion with tapering finials at both ends, a rust orange inner cartouche, and a small 8 petal rosette at the dead center. Around it the field is filled with an all-over network of curling palmettes, serrated saz leaves, cypress-like buds and thin vine scrolls, so the ground never feels empty even at this size. The 4 corners carry matching navy spandrels with rust orange cartouches inside, and the two upper corners echo the medallion in miniature. The main border is a navy band of cream palmettes linked by raspberry vines, mitered cleanly at every corner, flanked by minor ivory guard stripes of small blossoms and by a blue outer stripe. Detail photos show how tightly the outlines are drawn, with single-knot highlight lines in pale blue and cream picking out each leaf.

A Burgundy Field Lit by Navy, Ivory and Rust

The field is a deep burgundy that shifts toward raspberry red where the light catches the pile, a cooler and more saturated red than the brick tones you see in village weaving. Against it, the medallion, spandrels and main border sit in a near-black navy that gives the whole rug its structure. Inside those navy areas the palette opens up: rust orange in the medallion core and corner cartouches, cream and soft ivory in the palmettes, magenta and rose pink in the smaller blossoms, sky blue and cobalt in the leaf outlines, olive green in the stems, and small pools of deep brown for shadow. The ivory guard stripes are the brightest note on the rug and keep the border from reading heavy. Overall it is a saturated, jewel-toned rug that anchors a room with cream walls or warms up a space with a lot of dark wood.

Mashad Weaving in Khorasan

Mashad is the capital of Khorasan in northeast Persia and one of the few Persian centers that specialized in large formats, which is why room-size and oversize pieces from the city are far more common than small ones. Khorasan wool is long-stapled and high in lanolin, so a Mashad rug develops a low sheen with use rather than going dull, and it takes the deep reds and blues that define the city's palette. Local workshops split their output between the mahi fish pattern and the curved medallion drawing borrowed from the central Persian courts, and this piece belongs firmly to the second group: a full cartoon, curvilinear line work, and enough knots to hold the fine vine scroll across nearly 13 feet of length. The weave on the back is tight and regular, the selvedges are original, and the rug lies flat with no ripple, which tells you it was woven on a properly tensioned loom by a workshop that knew what it was doing.