9'8" x 12'7" Persian Mashad Rug | Red Field, Navy Floral Medallion | Excellent Condition

This is a full room size piece at 9'8" x 12'7", hand-knotted in Khorasan in the drawing tradition that made Persian Mashad rugs a benchmark for curvilinear floral work in northeast Persia. The wool pile stands a true 3/8" over a cotton foundation, the handle is supple rather than stiff, and the pile reads full and even from edge to edge with no low spots, no repairs and no color run. The back photo shows a tidy, regular knot line with crisp selvedges and original ends, which is the first thing to check on a rug this size. It falls squarely into the 10x13 Persian rugs class, the size most people want under a sofa group or a 10 seat dining table. Every rug we ship travels with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The field is built around a large lobed medallion whose core is an 8 pointed navy star set on a rust ground, with a single rose rosette at the exact center and small stems of carnations and tulips filling the space between the points. Out from that medallion run stepped lobes and tendrils that dissolve into the open red field rather than ending in a hard outline, a Mashad habit that keeps a big rug from looking heavy. Scrolling vines carry palmettes, serrated leaves, rosettes and small flowering sprays across the whole field in mirrored symmetry along both axes. The 4 corner spandrels are drawn in deep navy and loaded with ivory outlined boteh paisleys, each one filled with its own tiny flower, as seen clearly in the detail photos. Three borders frame the work: a camel ground main border of alternating palmettes and flower cups, flanked by narrow floral guard stripes on a wine and navy ground, with a fine ivory vine line separating them.

A Deep Crimson Field with Navy, Ivory and Rust

The dominant tone is a deep crimson red, slightly cooler and more wine leaning than a Kashan red, and it photographs with real depth because the wool takes light differently along the pile. Against it the medallion outline, spandrels and main motifs are worked in dark indigo navy, with a lighter sky blue used for leaf tips, small buds and the inner star drawing so the blues do not flatten into one mass. The medallion core breaks the scheme open with a warm rust orange that reappears in the camel ground of the main border, tying the center of the rug to its frame. Ivory does the quiet work: it outlines the boteh, traces the vine scrolls and lights the small flower heads, which is what keeps the pattern legible across almost 13 feet. Accents of rose pink, olive and bottle green appear in the blossoms and leaves, and a near black outlines the palmettes for contrast. Red, navy and ivory remain the three colors that decide the room.

Mashad Weaving in Khorasan

Mashad sits in Khorasan, in the far northeast of Persia, and has been a weaving center for centuries thanks to the pilgrim trade and the workshop money that followed it. Khorasan wool is long stapled and takes dye deeply, which is why Mashad reds hold their saturation instead of fading to pink, and why the pile on a well kept piece still has lanolin shine decades on. The looms here work from full cartoons rather than memory, so the curved line stays true: look at how the medallion lobes and the spandrel boteh repeat identically in all 4 corners. This weave is tight and regular on a cotton warp, firm enough to lie flat and take furniture without rippling, with a 3/8" pile that gives the surface weight underfoot. It is the kind of honest, well drawn town weaving that a Mashad is bought for, and at 9'8" x 12'7" it is a floor covering meant to be lived on, not retired to a wall.