9' x 12'1" Persian Bakhtiar Rug | Ivory Medallion on Rustic Red | Excellent Condition

A full room size 9' x 12'1" village piece from the Bakhtiari highlands of southwestern Persia, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and woven in the 2000's. The rug reads as one big statement from across a room: a rustic red field carrying a single ivory lobed medallion with a navy center panel, then a broad ivory main border holding the whole thing together. The handle is heavy and the pile is deep and even, exactly what buyers expect from Bakhtiari wool, and the close photographs of the back show clean, regular knotting with no repairs or thin spots. It arrives with our certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted Persian rug.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the classic medallion and corner format that Bakhtiari villages borrowed from the town workshops and then rewrote in their own bolder hand. At the center sits an ivory cusped medallion enclosing a near black navy cartouche with an 8 petal rosette at its heart, ringed by small pink and teal blossoms. Pendant finials run off the medallion top and bottom, and the same ivory ground reappears in the 4 corner spandrels so the eye reads a diamond across the red field. Between them the field is packed with curling serrated leaves, palmettes, rosettes and stems that never quite repeat, the kind of freehand variation you only get from a village loom. The main border carries alternating pink palmettes and dark vase forms on ivory, flanked by red vine stripes, a navy rosette guard and a sawtooth outer stripe, finished with hand-tied cotton fringe at both ends.

The Rustic Red, Ivory and Indigo Palette

The field is a deep rustic red with a faint madder warmth that shifts between claret and brick depending on where the light falls, and the pile shows gentle abrash striping across the width that keeps a color this saturated from ever looking flat. Against it the ivory medallion and border are a soft unbleached cream rather than a bright white, so the contrast is rich instead of harsh. The blues run from a near black indigo in the medallion core and inner guard to clear teal touches in the leaves and rosette centers. Olive green appears in small leaf accents, and the secondary palette of salmon pink, coral and mustard gold does most of the lifting in the flowers, with occasional flashes of pumpkin orange scattered through the field. In a room the overall impression is warm red and cream, which is why this coloring sits so easily on dark wood floors and beside neutral upholstery.

Bakhtiar Weaving in Chahar Mahal

Bakhtiar rugs come from the villages of Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari, in the mountains southwest of Isfahan around Shahr-e Kord, Saman and Boldaji, woven by the settled families of the Bakhtiari confederation. Their flocks graze high pasture, and that highland fleece gives a springy, long staple wool that takes dye deeply and wears for generations, which is the real reason these rugs have a reputation as workhorses among tribal Persian rugs. The weave here is a firm village knot, beaten down hard so the rug lies heavy and flat without underlayment, and the back shows tight rows with crisp definition on every motif. Room-filling formats like this one are what the Bakhtiari looms were built for, and it slots naturally into our selection of large Persian area rugs for main living spaces and dining rooms.