9'5" x 12'5" Persian Traditional Rug | Red Floral Field with Navy Palmette Border | 1980s Woven Cartouche

A full workshop drawing on a deep red ground, this 9'5" x 12'5" Persian rug was hand-knotted in the 1980s on a cotton foundation with a wool pile that still stands full and even from edge to edge. The weaver signed the piece with a small cartouche set into the ivory guard border at one end, which on a rug of this scale almost always means a named loom rather than anonymous village work. It belongs in the 9x12 Persian rugs range, the size that covers a full dining set or anchors a large seating group with floor to spare. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a layered medallion: an ivory 8 petal rosette at the core, ringed by a rust-orange cartouche of curling leaves, then a dark navy lobed frame that throws split arabesques out into the field. Slender pendants run off the top and bottom of the medallion, each one a small navy cartouche of its own filled with crimson blossoms and peach feathering. The 4 corners carry matching spandrels on the same near-black ground, so the eye reads a clear diamond across the red field even though the field itself is packed with all-over work: curled saz leaves, palmettes, boteh-like paisley forms, and thin vines carrying rosettes and tiny five-point blooms. The main border runs on a black ground with alternating palmette cartouches and vase-and-flower devices, flanked by ivory vine guard bands and narrow blue stripes filled with cross motifs and rosettes. Nothing in the drawing is lazy; the curves close properly at the corners, which is the mark of a cartoon followed by a disciplined weaver.

A Deep Red Field with Navy, Ivory and Peach

The field is a true cherry crimson that deepens toward burgundy where the pile leans away from the light, and it photographs warmer in the close-ups than in the overhead shots. Against it the weaver worked a palette with real range: midnight navy in the medallion frame, spandrels and main border, chalky ivory and cream in the guard bands and leaf outlines, and a soft peach to salmon that does most of the shading work inside the palmettes. Gold ochre appears in the medallion center and in scattered border blossoms, beige and taupe fill the larger curled leaves, and small notes of mid-blue, teal, rose pink and olive green sit inside the flower heads. Clean black outlining keeps every motif legible, so the rug reads rich rather than busy. Among red Persian rugs this one is on the jewel-toned end, not the brick end, and it sits well with walnut, cherry and dark painted furniture.

Woven in Persia in the 1980s

This is classic Persian town weaving: a cotton warp and weft pulled tight on the loom, a dense wool pile clipped low enough to hold the fine curvilinear line, and a back whose knot rows sit straight and regular across all 113 inches of width, visible in the reverse photograph. Curved drawing of this kind only works when the knot count is high enough to carry a smooth arc, which is exactly why the vine scrolls and the medallion outline stay crisp rather than stepping. The wool has aged into a soft sheen without shedding its body, the selvages and both end finishes are intact, and the pile measures full across the field. Forty-odd years in, it is still a rug you buy to put on the floor and use, not one you need to protect.