9'8" x 12'4" Persian Bakhtiar Rug | Tribal Star Medallion on Navy and Red | 1970s Wool

Knotted in the 1970s and kept in excellent condition with a full, even pile, this 9'8" x 12'4" Persian Bakhtiar has everything buyers look for in the group: a broad ivory star medallion sitting on a navy inner field, a rustic antique red ground carrying the drawing to the edges, and a wide flowering border that reads clearly from across the room. The wool is heavy and springy underfoot, the colors have softened just enough to look settled rather than new, and the weave is tight and flat with no ripple. At just under 10 by 12 and a half feet it fills a formal room the way the best large Persian rugs are meant to, with furniture sitting fully on the pile. It ships with our certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a large ivory star medallion built from 8 crimson petals arranged around a small hexagonal rosette, each petal filled with tiny blue and apricot squares that read almost like beadwork at close range. Serrated ivory leaves and pink boteh forms radiate from the medallion into a navy field packed with angular palmettes, tulip heads and stepped vine work. The 4 corners carry deep navy spandrels drawn with ivory scrolling vine, cypress forms and hooked arabesques, and the red field between them is filled edge to edge with rosettes and leaf sprays rather than left open. The main border runs a steady alternation of ivory lozenge cartouches and blue diamond medallions on a burgundy ground, flanked by ivory guard stripes of small floral heads and a fine checkered outer stripe. Every element is drawn with the straight lines and confident angles of village work, which is exactly why this pattern sits so well among geometric Persian rugs.

Rustic Red, Deep Navy and a Full Palette of Accents

The dominant color is a rustic antique red, a madder-toned brick that shifts toward burgundy in the border and toward a warmer brick in the open field depending on how the light hits the pile. Against it the navy is genuinely dark, closer to ink than to royal blue in the spandrels and a clearer mid blue in the inner field around the medallion, which is what gives the center its depth. Ivory does the structural work: the medallion core, the vine outlines, the guard stripes and the fringe all read as a warm undyed cream rather than bright white. Then come the accents, and there are many of them, all in small doses. Olive and grass green appear in leaves and rosette centers, burnt orange and saffron gold light up the flower heads along the border, and soft rose and salmon pink run through the leaf forms around the medallion. A few brown and charcoal notes appear in the smaller motifs. The overall effect is warm and saturated, deep enough to anchor dark wood furniture and lively enough to carry a room with plain walls.

Bakhtiar Weaving in the Chahar Mahal Villages

Bakhtiar rugs come from the villages of the Chahar Mahal district southwest of Isfahan, woven by settled Bakhtiari families on upright village looms. The wool comes from mountain flocks that summer at altitude, which is why the fleece is so tough and why the pile on a 50 year old piece like this one still stands up rather than lying flat. Weavers here knot on a strong cotton foundation with a heavy beat, so the rug has real weight and a firm handle, visible in the way it rolls in the photographs. Knot counts in this tradition are moderate by design, since the goal is a durable floor rug rather than a fine drawing exercise, and the pattern is scaled accordingly with bold motifs and clear outlines. That combination of tough wool, dense village weave and confident drawing is what separates the best Persian tribal rugs from decorative copies, and this piece is a straightforward example of the type at its healthiest.