9'8" x 12'10" Persian Moud Rug | Sheikh Safi Design | Signed Cartouche

This is a full room-size Persian Moud, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and finished with a 3/8" pile that still stands upright edge to edge. It carries the Sheikh Safi drawing, one of the classical Persian compositions, worked here as a stepped star medallion floating over a midnight navy field packed with boteh cartouches. One end of the border holds an ivory cartouche with a woven signature in Persian script, the mark of a named workshop rather than an anonymous village loom. At 9'8" x 12'10" it sits squarely in the 10x13 Persian rug range, the size most large living and dining rooms actually need, and the condition is excellent with no repairs or thin spots. Every rug we ship leaves with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center is an 8 point stepped star medallion on a red ground, filled with ivory rosette cartouches, curling cloud bands and a small orange and blue floral boss at the exact middle. Radiating out from it, the navy field is covered in large boteh, each paisley outlined in ivory and sky blue and filled with its own miniature bouquet, so the field reads as an allover pattern and a medallion design at the same time. Between them run thin blue vines, 8 petal rosettes, split palmettes and small ivory blossoms that keep every inch of ground occupied. The 4 corners are drawn in deep red with matching boteh and vine work, which frames the field without closing it in. The main border is a red-burgundy band alternating ivory rosette medallions with paired palmettes, flanked by navy and sky blue guard stripes and a fine reciprocal outer edge, and the signature cartouche interrupts that guard stripe on one side.

A Navy and Red Palette With Real Depth

The ground is a deep indigo navy that photographs almost black in low light and opens into true blue where the light hits the pile, the quality that makes navy blue Persian rugs so forgiving in a busy room. Against it the weaver set a warm brick red in the medallion and a darker burgundy in the spandrels and main border, so the two reds read as separate tones rather than one flat block. The drawing is carried in ivory and a clear sky blue, which is what gives the boteh their outline and keeps the pattern legible from standing height. Smaller quantities of sage green, soft rust and orange, camel, dusty rose and charcoal fill the flowers and the palmette hearts, and the abrash across the navy field is gentle, the natural variation you get from hand-dyed wool rather than a flaw. The ivory outer guard and the pale fringe line finish the border cleanly.

Moud Weaving in Khorasan

Moud is a weaving town in Khorasan, in the northeast of Persia below Birjand, and it belongs to the same regional school as the Persian Mashad workshops further north. Moud built its name on fineness and precision: tight knotting on a cotton warp, a low clipped pile that holds curved lines and small floral detail, and highland wool that takes indigo and madder well and keeps a dry, durable handle. The back of this piece shows the knots in even rows with the pattern reading almost as clearly from behind as from the front, which is the practical test of a good Khorasan weave. A signed cartouche in Moud work points to a master's loom, where the cartoon was drawn out in advance and a single family took a room-size piece like this through to completion. That combination of workshop drawing, hard-wearing wool and honest 9'8" x 12'10" proportions is why these rugs stay in service for generations.