9'7" x 12' Persian Mashad Rug | Burgundy Floral Medallion | 1980s Excellent Condition

This is a classic room-size Persian Mashad rug from the 1980s, measuring 9'7" x 12' and hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation. The pile is still full and springy, the burgundy field has held its depth, and the ivory guard borders are clean from one end to the other, which is why it is graded excellent and perfect. At this width and length it covers a full seating group or a 10 seat table with the border free on all 4 sides, and the floral drawing is dense enough that it reads as pattern rather than as a single loud medallion. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity listing origin, materials and measurements, so you have the documentation in hand along with the rug.

Design and Motifs

A lobed navy medallion sits dead center, outlined in ivory and filled with curling vine, with a small red cartouche at its heart holding an 8 petal rosette in soft green and blue. Above and below it hang matching pendants, and each of the 4 corners carries a large navy spandrel drawn with the same vocabulary so the layout closes properly. The open burgundy ground between those elements is not plain: it carries an all-over floral scatter of palmettes, rosettes, cypress sprays and thin stems that lean the same direction, which is what keeps a field this large from looking empty. The main border is a navy band of paisley boteh forms and pink palmettes on a repeating rhythm, framed by a wide cream guard stripe of linked flower heads and finished by a narrow burgundy outer edge, 5 bands in total from field to selvage.

The Burgundy, Navy and Green Palette

The field is a true wine burgundy, dark enough to sit comfortably against walnut and mahogany yet warm rather than brown, and it is the reason this rug belongs with the deeper burgundy Persian rugs rather than the bright reds. Against it the medallion and spandrels go near black navy, with mid blue and powder blue picked out inside the flower heads. The greens are the surprise: a clear leaf green on the stems and a grey green in the medallion fill, both cool enough to lift the red. Scattered through the field are apricot, rose pink, saffron gold, chestnut brown and small notes of ivory, each one used in single flowers rather than in blocks, so the eye keeps finding new color up close. The cream borders do the structural work, throwing a bright frame around all that depth and bouncing light back into the pattern.

Mashad Weaving in Khorasan

Mashad is the great weaving city of Khorasan in northeast Persia, and its looms built their name on exactly this formula: large, usable, curvilinear floral medallion rugs in deep red and navy, woven with the long staple wool of the region. That wool is what you feel in the pile here, heavy and slightly glossy, cut at a medium height that wears evenly under furniture. The knotting seen on the reverse is regular and tight for a piece of this scale, the warps run straight, and the selvages and both end finishes are original and intact. Among 9x12 Persian rugs this is the size and type buyers ask for most often, and a 1980s Mashad in this condition is the sensible way to get a decades-old Persian floor without inheriting someone else's wear.