9'7" x 12'9" Persian Isfahan Najafabad Rug | Navy Blue Floral Medallion | 1980s Wool

This is a room size Isfahan Najafabad from the 1980s, hand-knotted in natural wool on a cotton foundation and measuring 9'7" x 12'9". The drawing is the classic Isfahan formula done at village workshop scale: a single starburst medallion in tomato red floating on a deep indigo field, ivory corner spandrels, and a brick red main border carried on an unbroken scrolling vine. The pile is full and even across the whole surface, the sides and ends are intact, and the wool has taken on the quiet sheen that only comes from decades of settled age. It sits squarely in the 10x13 Persian rugs bracket, the size most often asked for under a large sectional or a 10 seat dining table. A certificate of authenticity is issued with the rug.

Design and Motifs

The center medallion is built out in concentric rings: a small sky blue star at the core, then a ring of lance shaped blue leaves, then a red ground crowded with 8 petal rosettes and lotus blossoms, finishing in a serrated outline that throws short pendants north and south. Around it the navy field is filled edge to edge with curling arabesque vines that carry palmettes, split leaves and small ivory rosettes, so the ground never reads as empty even in the open corners. The 4 ivory spandrels are drawn with heavier red and navy scrollwork and a small olive palmette at the apex, which is what gives the field its sense of a framed panel. The main border runs a red ground with alternating palmettes and cupped blossoms on a continuous vine, flanked by narrow guard stripes of light blue carrying rows of tiny 4 petal rosettes and a fine reciprocal outer line. Everything is curvilinear, nothing is angular, and the corners resolve properly where the vine turns.

A Navy, Red and Ivory Palette

The field is a deep indigo navy, dark enough to read almost black in low light and opening into a clear ink blue under a lamp, which is the whole reason this piece works so well as an anchor for a pale room. Against it the medallion and border are a warm tomato red with a slight brick undertone, not a cold crimson. The third voice is ivory, used for the spandrels, the vine outlines and many of the blossom petals, and it is a soft cream rather than a bright white. Inside those three there is real secondary color: sky blue in the medallion leaves and guard stripes, salmon rose in the smaller flower heads, olive and moss green in the leaf tips, and occasional camel brown in the palmette centers. The abrash across the navy ground is gentle and even, the mark of wool dyed in batches, and it keeps the large field alive. If you are working with a cool scheme, this sits with the rest of our navy blue Persian rugs.

Woven in Najafabad, in the Isfahan Tradition

Najafabad is a weaving town a short drive west of Isfahan in central Persia, and it has always worked to Isfahan cartoons. The city ateliers built their reputation on drawing, on the curved line and the flowing vine held perfectly around a medallion, and that is exactly what the Najafabad looms borrowed, translating it into larger room size formats in sturdy wool rather than the fine silk foundation pieces the city itself is known for. The practical result is the best of both: the elegance and correct proportion you expect from Isfahan rugs, on a thicker, harder wearing weave that can take a dining chair and 40 years of family traffic and still show full pile, as this one does. The back is clean and legible, the knotting regular, and the cotton warps and wefts have kept the rug lying dead flat at 9'7" x 12'9".