9'6" x 13' Persian Mashad Rug | Burgundy Field, Navy Medallion | 1980s, Excellent Condition

A room-size piece from Khorasan with the kind of saturated color that only well dyed local wool holds this long. The field runs a deep burgundy crimson, the medallion is near-black indigo with a rust center, and the pile still stands tall and even across all 13 feet of length, with clean selvages and original cotton fringe at both ends. Woven in the 1980s and kept in excellent condition, this is one of those Persian Mashad rugs that was clearly made for a formal room and then looked after. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity stating origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is the classic Khorasan formula: a single lobed medallion anchored in the center of the field, built in layers. At its heart sits an ivory 8 petal rosette set on a rust cartouche, ringed by small blossoms and tulip sprays, then enclosed in a scalloped indigo ground outlined in a white pearl line. Tall palmette pendants rise and drop from the medallion on the long axis. The 4 corners carry matching indigo spandrels filled with the same rosettes and curling leaves, which frames the field without closing it in. Between medallion and corners the open burgundy ground is covered in an all-over scheme of serrated rosettes, cloudband leaves, flowering vines and small boteh forms, each one drawn slightly differently by hand. The border system runs five bands deep: a wide indigo main border of boteh paisleys alternating with rose cartouches, flanked by ivory guard bands of blossoms and blue arabesque brackets, then a narrow orange and cream vine stripe, finishing in a plain burgundy outer band.

The Burgundy, Indigo and Ivory Palette

The field is a true cochineal burgundy that reads raspberry crimson in bright light and settles to a deeper wine tone under lamps, and the close-up photographs show it is a single clean color with no abrash streaking. Against it, the medallion and borders sit in a dense indigo so dark it passes for navy black until you look at the pile on edge, where the blue is obvious. Inside the medallion the ground shifts to a warm terracotta rust, and the ivory used for the central rosette and the guard borders is a soft cream rather than a bleached white, which keeps the contrast rich instead of harsh. Secondary colors do the detail work: grass green and olive in the leaves, rose pink and salmon in the blossoms, pale sky blue and a stronger cobalt in the small brackets, apricot orange in the vine stripes, and touches of mushroom grey and dark brown in the cloudbands. Nothing is synthetic-looking, and the whole scheme holds together as burgundy and navy with green and ivory lifting it.

Mashad Weaving in Khorasan

Mashad is the great city of Khorasan in northeast Persia, a pilgrimage center with workshops that have supplied large formal medallion rugs for well over a century. Khorasan wool is long stapled and takes dye beautifully, which is why Mashad reds have a particular depth, and city looms there work with a cotton foundation and curvilinear cartoons rather than the angular village drawing of the northwest. This piece shows that workshop discipline: symmetrical corner resolution, a medallion that sits dead center on the long axis, and a tight five band border that keeps its proportions all the way around. The pile is cut at a medium height, full and heavy underfoot, the kind of weight that makes a 9'6" x 13' rug lie flat without padding. For buyers working to that footprint it belongs with the better 10x13 Persian rugs, and if you want to place the weave in time yourself, our guide on how to date an Oriental rug explains what the back, fringe and dyes tell you.