9' x 11'6" Persian Bakhtiar Rug | Tribal Star Medallion | Semi-Antique 1970s Wool

This 9' x 11'6" semi-antique rug was hand-knotted in the 1970s on a cotton foundation with a full wool pile, and it still carries the weight and spring of a rug that was built for a lifetime of use. The drawing is village work of the best kind: confident, slightly irregular, and completely alive. Pile depth is even corner to corner, the ends and sides are sound, and the ivory cotton fringe is original. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity recording its origin, age, materials and exact measurements.

Design and Motifs

The field is organized around a large stepped star medallion built from 8 cream and navy lobes radiating out from a small blue diamond with a single pink rosette at its heart. Long cream pendants run north and south from the medallion, each tipped with a crisp arrowhead. Four navy spandrels, generously drawn and filled with curling vine and serrated leaves, anchor the corners and frame the burgundy ground. Around them the field is scattered with angular palmettes, 4 petal blossoms and small bird-like leaf forms typical of tribal Persian rugs. The main border alternates broad palmette rosettes with reciprocal hooks, set between narrow ivory guard stripes.

A Rustic Burgundy Palette with Navy and Cream

The ground is a rustic burgundy that shifts between brick and deep wine depending on where the light falls, a sign of good hand-spun wool taking dye unevenly in the best way. Against it sit two very different blues: an inky near-black navy in the spandrels and border ground, and a brighter mid blue used for the medallion core and the small leaf fillers. Cream and warm beige carry the medallion lobes, pendants and guard stripes, giving the composition its lift. Soft coral pink appears in the blossoms, black outlines sharpen every shape, and hints of forest green surface in a few leaf tips.

Bakhtiar Weaving in the Chahar Mahal Villages

Bakhtiar rugs come from the villages of the Chahar Mahal plateau west of Isfahan, places like Shahr Kord, Saman and Boldaji, where the Bakhtiari people settled and set up looms. Highland pastures produce a dense, high-lanolin fleece, and the weavers use it generously: a thick wool pile packed onto a sturdy cotton warp and weft, beaten down hard so the rug lies flat and takes traffic for generations. The knotting here is village-fine rather than workshop-fine, which is exactly what gives the medallion its bold, slightly hand-drawn geometry. After 50 years the wool has burnished to a low sheen that only age and foot traffic can produce.