9'4" x 12'8" Persian Mashad Rug | All Over Mahal Floral Design | Deep Red Field, Excellent Condition

This is a full room size Persian Mashad rug measuring 9'4" x 12'8", hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile that still stands up thick and even across the whole field. The weave is firm, the selvedges are tight, the fringe is original and intact, and the condition is excellent throughout. At this footprint it sits at the generous end of 9x12 Persian rugs, long enough to carry a sofa group with all legs on the wool or to seat a 10 chair dining table without the back legs falling off the edge. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted and Persian in origin.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. The weaver ran a Mahal all over design from end to end, a lattice of thin scrolling vines that links large shield palmettes, serrated acanthus leaves, 8 petal rosettes and small cypress-like flowering sprays. The drawing repeats on a slow vertical rhythm rather than mirroring tightly, so the eye keeps finding new blossoms instead of locking onto one axis, and the field reads as a garden seen from above. The main border is the strongest statement on the rug: a procession of large boteh paisleys on navy, each one filled with its own miniature flower head and leaf, alternating with curled rosette clusters. That band is framed on both sides by ivory guard borders carrying a running vine of small 4 petal flowers, with a further narrow red outer stripe at the edge. Corners are resolved cleanly, which is a sign the design was drawn to the loom rather than improvised at the end.

The Color: Raspberry Red, Navy and Ivory

The field is a deep saturated red that leans toward raspberry and burgundy rather than tomato, the kind of tone that anchors a room with cream walls or dark wood floors and keeps its weight under lamplight. Against it the weaver worked a navy so dark it reads nearly black in the border, then lifted the whole composition with ivory: ivory guard stripes, ivory leaf outlines, ivory flower hearts scattered through the field. Secondary notes include dusty rose pink in the palmettes, a cool sky blue in the paisley fillings, soft sage and olive green in the leaves, and small touches of camel and chocolate brown in the vine work. It is a layered palette rather than a flat one, with gentle variation across the ground where different dye lots of wool met on the loom, and it places this piece squarely among classic red and burgundy Persian rugs.

Mashad and the Khorasan Weaving Tradition

Mashad is the great weaving city of Khorasan in northeast Persia, a pilgrimage center whose workshops have supplied large formal floor pieces for well over a century. Khorasan wool is the reason Mashad rugs wear the way they do: long staple, high in natural lanolin, and it takes red dye better than almost any other fleece in Persia, which is why the city is known for deep red grounds like this one. Mashad looms are built wide, so sizes in the 9 to 13 foot range are native work there rather than a stretch, and the weave on this example is regular and dense enough to hold the fine vine scroll of a Mahal layout without the curves breaking into steps. The back shows a tidy, evenly beaten knot structure on cotton warps, with no repairs, no reweaves and no color run, and the pile has the slight silky sheen that good Khorasan wool develops as it is walked on.