9'9" x 12'6" Persian Isfahan Rug | Signed All-Over Lattice | Grey, Blue & Green Wool

A signed room size Persian Isfahan rug measuring 9'9" x 12'6", hand-knotted in fine wool on a cotton foundation with a short 3/8" pile that keeps the drawing crisp from edge to edge. Instead of the central medallion most buyers expect from this workshop tradition, the weaver laid out a continuous diamond lattice across the whole field, and the drawing repeats with the kind of discipline that only comes from a full cartoon and a tight weave. A small cartouche woven into the inner border carries the workshop signature, visible in the close-up photograph. The rug is in excellent condition, with even pile, straight sides and full original ends, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity. Buyers working within the standard 10x13 Persian rug footprint will find this one covers a large seating area or a full dining set without crowding the walls.

Design and Motifs

The field is an all-over lattice design built from diamonds outlined in small green leaf chains, each lozenge filled with a different combination of star rosettes, 8 petal florets and stylised palmettes. The weaver alternated the fillings rather than repeating a single unit, so blue starbursts sit beside ivory florets, olive gold rosettes and soft lilac blossoms, and tiny brick red dots punctuate the spaces between them. Read as a whole the field behaves like tiled panel work, the same logic you see in the glazed tile of a Persian courtyard, which is exactly where this drawing tradition comes from. The border system is deep and layered: a wide main band of green framed diamonds each holding its own rosette, flanked by narrow guard stripes of blue floral vine, a fine reciprocal minor stripe, and a plain dark outline that pulls the whole composition together. The signature cartouche sits in the inner band at one end, worked in ivory on blue.

The Grey, Blue and Green Palette

The ground is a cool pale grey, closer to stone or soft pewter than to white, and that neutral base is what makes the rest of the palette work. Over it the lattice runs in two greens, a deep pine green for the outlining leaf chains and a brighter emerald inside the diamonds. The blues do the heavy lifting: mid cornflower blue for the larger rosettes, a darker indigo for the outlines and the border ground, and a light powder blue for the finer tracery. Olive gold and warm sand appear in roughly every fourth lozenge, breaking the grey and adding enough warmth that the rug does not read cold. Ivory carries the smallest details and the cartouche, while occasional dots of brick red act as accents rather than as a main color. The result is a quiet, silvery rug at a distance that reveals a much richer green and blue palette up close, and it sits comfortably with grey, charcoal, navy and natural oak interiors.

Isfahan Weaving in Central Persia

Isfahan sits in central Persia and has been a weaving center since the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century. Its reputation rests on drawing rather than on ornament for its own sake: the curve of a vine, the symmetry of a rosette, the accuracy with which a repeat holds its line across 12'6" of length. None of that is possible on a coarse weave, which is why Isfahan workshops keep the pile short and the knot count high on a cotton foundation. This piece shows that training clearly. The lattice never drifts, the diamonds stay square to the sides, the borders turn their 4 corners cleanly, and the small filler motifs are drawn with the same care at the ends as in the middle of the field. Signing the work in a border cartouche is the workshop weaver's way of standing behind it, and a signed piece of this scale represents a long stretch of one bench's working life.