9'6" x 14'10" Persian Isfahan Rug | Red Field, Navy Medallion | 1980s Hand-Knotted Wool

At 9'6" x 14'10" this is a true room-size floor covering, wide enough to carry a full seating group with all legs on the wool and long enough to run past a 10 seat dining table. It was hand-knotted in the 1980's in wool on a cotton foundation, and the handle is exactly what you want from a piece of this age: full body, an even low-medium pile, tight selvedges and original ivory fringe at both ends. The drawing belongs to the classical school of Persian Isfahan rugs, with a lobed navy medallion set on a deep red field of scrolling vine, and the proportions make it one of the easier large Persian rugs to place in a real American living room. Condition is excellent, and the rug ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an 8 lobed navy medallion filled with fine white and rose vinework, closing on a sky blue cartouche and a small ivory rosette at the exact center. Serrated pendants run off the medallion at both ends, and the 4 corners repeat the same idea in cream and pale blue spandrels so the layout reads symmetrically from every side of the room. Between medallion and border the red field is filled edge to edge with an all-over system of curling vine, split palmettes, lotus heads, rosettes and small feathered leaves, drawn in a curvilinear line rather than the angular village manner. The wide red main border carries alternating palmettes and cupped blossoms on a continuous meander, and it is framed by 4 narrow guard stripes in ivory and light blue that keep the whole composition contained. Detail photographs show how much small drawing sits inside each flower head, which is where the weaver's hand shows on a rug this large.

A Deep Crimson Ground Under Navy and Sky Blue

Red is the dominant color, a deep crimson that photographs slightly cooler in raking light and warmer in the flat overhead shots, and it fills both the field and the main border so the rug reads as one continuous mass of color from across a room. The medallion is a dark navy blue, nearly ink at its outer edge, and it is lit from inside by a clear sky blue reserve that repeats in the guard stripes and in dozens of blossoms scattered through the field. Ivory and cream do the structural work, outlining the spandrels, the guard bands and the fringe end, while beige and gold warm the vine tracery and the leaf tips. Green appears only in small quantities, in single leaves and in the tiny shields around the medallion, with a few orange highlights in the flower centers. The overall effect is a classic red and navy Persian palette that sits comfortably with dark wood floors, leather and navy upholstery.

Woven in the Isfahan Tradition of Central Persia

Isfahan sits in central Persia and has been the reference point for formal Persian design since the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century. Its reputation rests on drawing: the curved line, the flowing vine, the precision of a palmette repeated a hundred times without drifting. This piece was made in that tradition, and like most wool room sizes of this scale it comes from the weaving belt around the city, the Najafabad side, where looms wide enough for a 9'6" x 14'10" rug are set up and the Isfahan cartoons are worked in local wool rather than wool and silk. The knotting is even across the full 14'10" length, the medallion is centered, and the borders turn the corners cleanly, all signs of a workshop piece rather than a rushed commercial weave. Forty years on the wool has taken on the slight sheen that only comes with age and use.