9'8" x 15'6" Persian Najafabad Isfahan Rug | Red Floral Medallion | Oversize 1980s Wool

This is a genuine 9'8" x 15'6" Persian rug woven in the Isfahan tradition during the 1980s, and it is the kind of piece that settles an entire room rather than decorating a corner of one. The pile is hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation, the drawing is fully curvilinear, and the wool has taken on the quiet sheen that only comes with a few decades of careful use. At nearly 10 feet wide and 15 and a half feet long it sits squarely in the oversize Persian rugs category, where floor plans, not budgets, are usually the deciding factor. Condition is excellent, with full even pile from end to end, straight sides and clean ivory fringe, as the reverse photograph shows. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The composition is the classic Isfahan formula, executed with the confidence of a workshop that has drawn it a thousand times. A large lobed star medallion anchors the center, built in layered navy and turquoise rings around a small 8 petal rosette, with brown and camel arabesques threading through the blue like inlay work. Two navy pendants extend from the medallion along the long axis, and the field around them carries an unbroken system of scrolling vines, palmettes, cloud bands and small budding blossoms that never once repeats awkwardly across 15 feet of length. The 4 corner spandrels are drawn in ivory and deep teal, giving the red field a clearly framed shape rather than letting it run to the border. Framing all of it is a wide navy main border filled with alternating palmettes and rosettes on a curling vine, bracketed by narrow floral guard stripes and a fine reciprocal minor band at the outer edge.

Color: Cherry Red, Deep Navy and Teal

The field is a warm cherry red with a rose cast that lifts under daylight and deepens toward crimson in lamplight, which is why it reads slightly differently between the overhead photograph and the close-up details. Against it, the medallion and the main border are worked in a near-black indigo navy that gives the design its weight, while the inner rings of the medallion and the spandrel grounds shift into a soft sea teal and powder blue. The floral work carries the rest of the palette: ivory and cream in the vine scrolls and spandrels, camel and soft gold in the leafwork, sage and bottle green in the small leaves, and touches of rose pink and chestnut brown in the palmette centers. The greens and blues do most of the cooling, so the red never becomes loud, and the overall effect is rich and traditional rather than bright.

Isfahan Weaving and the Najafabad Workshops

Isfahan in central Persia has been the reference point for fine curvilinear weaving since the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century, and the reputation of Persian Isfahan rugs rests entirely on drawing: the smooth curve of a vine, the symmetry of a medallion, the discipline of a border that turns its corners cleanly. Najafabad, a weaving town just west of Isfahan city, works from the same cartoons and the same design tradition, but in durable wool pile on cotton rather than the silk-warp city pieces, which is exactly what makes a room size format like this practical. You get the Isfahan drawing at a scale a Isfahan city workshop rarely attempts, on a foundation built to take real traffic. Look at the reverse and the knotting is regular and tight, the horizontal lines of the wefts run straight, and the design reads almost as clearly from the back as from the front, which is the honest test of a well made hand-knotted rug.