9'6" x 12'11" Persian Sheik Safi Rug | Red Field, Dark Indigo Border | Semi-Antique

This 9'6" x 12'11" Persian rug is drawn in the Sheik Safi pattern, the medallion and corner layout that descends from the great Safavid shrine weavings, here set on a deep madder red field inside a dark indigo border. It is hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation, with a 3/8" pile that stands evenly from fringe to fringe, no low spots, no restoration and no thin edges. At this footprint it falls into the 10x13 Persian rugs bracket, the size that puts a full seating group or a 10 seat table entirely on the wool rather than half on the floor. It ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming the hand-knotted construction, the wool pile and the Persian origin.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an 8 point ivory star, ringed by a dark indigo disc and 8 large ivory and blue petals, each one filled with its own small rose spray and outlined in rust and olive. Around that sits a second ring of petals, then ivory pendants running out to the head and foot of the field. The red ground between medallion and corners is not left open: it is packed with scrolling vines, split palmettes, curled cloudband tendrils in ivory and small flower heads that repeat in perfect mirror across the long axis. All 4 corners carry ivory spandrels containing a rust and gold rosette panel, a device you can see clearly in the corner close-up. The main border is a dark indigo band of palmettes and serrated leaves, flanked on each side by a wide apricot gold stripe of trailing florals and finished with narrow ivory and blue guard stripes, so the frame reads as 5 distinct bands rather than one heavy edge.

A Madder Red Field Framed in Dark Indigo

Red and dark indigo are the two colors that carry this rug, but the palette inside them is wide. The field is a true madder red, warm and slightly brick rather than pink, and it holds its tone right across 12'11" with no abrash banding. Against it the drawing is worked in cream and ivory, apricot gold, rose pink, two distinct blues (a mid sky blue and the deeper indigo of the border), sage and olive green, rust orange and small touches of near black used as outlining. The ivory spandrels and the ivory pendants of the medallion lift the corners and keep the red from closing in, while the apricot gold border stripes warm the whole frame and pick up the gold notes inside the medallion petals. In daylight the wool takes on a soft sheen, visible in the floor shot, and the reds read brighter near the fringe ends where the light hits the nap straight on.

Persian Origin and the Sheik Safi Pattern

The Sheik Safi name comes from the shrine of Sheikh Safi al-Din, whose 16th century floor weavings set the template that Persian workshops have redrawn ever since: one radiant star medallion, matching spandrels, and a field of curved vine work that has to be plotted on a cartoon before a single knot is tied. That curvilinear drawing is the test of the weave, because a curved stem only stays curved if the knot count is high enough and the weaver follows the cartoon line by line. Turn this one over and the back shows a clean, regular grid of knots with the pattern fully legible from the reverse, which is the mark of a workshop piece rather than a village copy. The wool is well spun and springy, the 3/8" pile has been kept low and even, and the selvages and ivory fringes are intact on all 4 sides. A rug of this scale and drawing was woven to live under furniture for generations, and it still has that service ahead of it.