9'8" x 12'5" Persian Mashad Rug | Signed Floral Medallion | Rose Burgundy & Navy Wool

This is a signed room-size piece, 9'8" x 12'5" of hand-knotted fine wool on a cotton foundation, and the kind of rug that quietly anchors a formal room without ever shouting. The field is a deep rose burgundy, filled edge to edge with curling vine, palmettes and blossoms around a navy star medallion, and the whole drawing is contained by five borders that finish in an ivory outer stripe. Pile depth is even across the surface, the ends and sides are sound, and the small woven cartouche in the ivory guard border tells you a workshop put its name on the finished piece. Persian Mashad rugs from Khorasan are built for exactly this kind of long service, and this one ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted Persian rug.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a lobed navy medallion built around an 8 petal rosette, ringed by small cusps and finished top and bottom with a crested pendant. Instead of leaving open space around it, the weaver filled the entire field with a dense all-over scheme of palmettes, serrated leaves, rosettes and fine curling tendrils, with stylized vase and flowering shrub forms set on the central axis at both ends. The 4 corners carry navy spandrels that repeat the medallion vocabulary at a smaller scale, so the eye reads a medallion layout and an all-over layout at the same time. The curved line work, the scrolling vine and the balance of the border system all follow Tabriz design conventions, drawn here in the Khorasan palette. The wide navy main border alternates large palmettes with upright flowering sprays, flanked by ivory guard stripes of meandering rosettes and two narrow navy minor stripes, with the signature cartouche worked discreetly into the ivory band near one end.

Color Palette

The ground is a rose burgundy that leans toward raspberry in daylight and settles into a deeper wine tone under lamplight, and it carries far more color than a photograph first suggests. Against it sit midnight navy for the medallion, spandrels and main border, bright cornflower and slate blue in the leaves and palmette hearts, clean ivory and cream for the outlines, guard borders and many of the blossoms, and a dusty olive to sage green that runs through the vine work and keeps the reds from going sweet. Secondary notes include soft rose pink, terracotta, a warm caramel gold in the smaller leaves and small touches of near-black brown that sharpen the flower centers. The contrast between the hot field and the cool navy frame is what makes this piece read as one of the more confident red and burgundy Persian rugs, and the ivory outer stripe gives the whole rug a crisp finish line against a wood or stone floor.

Mashad Origin and Weaving Quality

Mashad sits in Khorasan in northeast Persia, a pilgrimage city with a long commercial weaving trade and a reputation for large, well-proportioned floor rugs in rich reds and deep blues. A signed Mashad means a workshop piece rather than a village effort: the drawing was set by a designer, the borders resolve correctly at all 4 corners, and the cartouche is the workshop standing behind the result. The weave is tight and regular with a short, dense wool pile that takes furniture well, and the Khorasan wool has the body and slight sheen that makes these rugs wear in rather than wear out. At 9'8" x 12'5" this is a genuine room-size rug, wide enough to carry a sofa group with the medallion left clear or a 10 seat dining table with chairs still on the pile when pulled out.