9'8" x 13'5" Persian Isfahan Najafabad Rug | Red Field Star Medallion | 1980s Fine Wool

This is a full room size piece woven in the 1980s in the Najafabad workshops west of Isfahan, drawn in the classic city idiom of Persian Isfahan rugs but executed in a hard wearing 3/8" fine wool pile on a cotton foundation. At 9'8" x 13'5" it covers a large living room or a 10 seat dining table with the border still reading clearly on all 4 sides. The wool has taken on the quiet sheen that only comes with 40 years of use and careful washing, the pile is even from end to end, and both selvages and fringes are sound. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity recording its origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a layered star medallion built from an 8 point core ringed by ivory and blue petals, finished with a small rosette at the very middle and tipped at head and foot by tall serrated pendants. Around it the field is filled edge to edge with curving vine scroll, lanceolate leaves, palmettes and open blossoms, all drawn with the flowing curved line that separates workshop Isfahan drawing from village work. The 4 corner spandrels answer the medallion in ivory and carry blue vases with sprays of flowers, a quiet pictorial touch you only notice on a second look. The main border runs a rhythm of rosettes and palmettes linked by a thin meander, framed by matching floral guard stripes and a fine outer stripe, so the composition closes cleanly at every edge.

A Deep Red Field With Blue and Soft Green

The field is a deep raspberry red that photographs slightly brighter under showroom light and settles into a warmer, more saturated tone at home, which is exactly what buyers want from red Persian rugs of this period. Against it the weaver worked 2 distinct blues, a strong indigo in the leaves and palmettes and a lighter sky blue through the medallion and the vase motifs, so the pattern has depth rather than a single flat contrast. Ivory and pale gold carry the vine scroll, the spandrels and the medallion ground, cooling the whole field. The borders shift to a soft sage green ground with salmon, rose and indigo florals, and touches of olive and camel appear through the leafwork. It is a warm, traditional palette that sits easily with mahogany, walnut, leather and cream upholstery.

Najafabad and the Isfahan Weaving Tradition

Isfahan in central Persia has been a court weaving center since the Safavid era of the 16th century, and its reputation rests on drawing: the curved line, the flowing vine and the precision of the cartoon. Najafabad, the town just west of the city, weaves those same cartoons at room scale in wool rather than in silk highlighted kork, which is why pieces like this one exist in sizes a city Isfahan rarely reaches. The back of this rug shows small, regular, tightly packed knots on a cotton foundation, with the pattern legible from the reverse, which is the mark of a disciplined workshop weave. Anyone shopping 10x13 Persian rugs will find that this combination of Isfahan drawing, dense wool pile and genuine 1980s age is far harder to replace than the price suggests.