9'8" x 12'8" Persian Mashad Rug | Red Field Floral Medallion | Excellent Full Wool Pile

This 9'8" x 12'8" Persian Mashad is the kind of room-filling piece that settles a space in one move: a clear red field, a tall ivory and navy medallion dead center, and four navy spandrels that frame the field the way a mat frames a painting. Hand-knotted in Khorasan on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" wool pile, it is heavy, even and completely flat, with the full nap and crisp selvages of a rug that has been cared for. At just over 12 feet long it sits in the 10x13 Persian rug range, so it carries a full seating group or a 10 seat table without crowding the walls. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials, size and knotting.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is classic Mashad workshop work: one large 8 point star medallion built in layers, a brown and gold rosette at the very center, a blue star around it, then a red lobed ring and an ivory outline that lifts the whole thing off the field. Above and below the medallion sit matching pendants of curling vine and small palmettes, and the open red ground between them is filled with delicate sprays of blossoms, serrated leaves and tiny rosettes rather than left bare. The navy spandrels in all 4 corners repeat the same vocabulary at larger scale, with bold curling cloudband scrolls and green and ivory palmettes. The border system runs 5 bands deep: a wide navy main border of linked palmettes and flowering vine, flanked by gold guard stripes of alternating buds, then narrow ivory and red reciprocal stripes that keep the edges tight and the eye moving inward.

A Red Field Read Against Navy, Ivory and Gold

The field is a true madder red, warm rather than orange, and it is the color that does the work in a room, picking up lamplight at night and reading slightly deeper where the pile lies away from the light. Against it the main border and spandrels are a dark indigo navy, almost ink at the outer edge, which gives the rug its weight and keeps the red from spreading. Ivory is the third voice: it outlines the medallion, fills the corner palmettes and runs as a thin guard stripe, and it is what makes the design legible from across the room. Soft gold and apricot in the guard bands warm the transition between navy and red, while small touches of sage and olive green, dusty rose, light sky blue and a brown gold center keep the florals from going flat. The fringe and selvage are natural ivory and red. In practice this is a rug that holds up next to walnut and mahogany, cream walls, and deeper paint colors alike.

Mashad Weaving in Khorasan

Mashad sits in Khorasan, in the northeast of Persia, and has been a weaving city of workshops rather than scattered village looms, which is why Persian Mashad rugs are known for large formats drawn to a cartoon and executed with a steady, curved line from one end of the rug to the other. You can see it here in the symmetry of the medallion and in the way the border pattern turns the corners without breaking rhythm, something only a workshop loom and an experienced weaver manage at nearly 13 feet of length. The local wool is long stapled and takes dye deeply, and it is spun for durability, so Mashad pile wears slowly and keeps its luster. This example is woven at a comfortable city-weave density on a cotton foundation, with a 3/8" pile that still stands upright across the whole field, including the high traffic center. It is a practical, built-to-last weave in a size that is genuinely hard to find in good condition.