9' x 12'9" Persian Joshagan Rug | Burgundy Floral Medallion | 1970s Semi-Antique

Woven in the 1970s on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" wool pile, this 9' x 12'9" Joshagan is the kind of village-made Persian rug that was built to be lived on and, in this case, clearly was not worn hard. The pile is full and even from selvedge to selvedge, the ivory fringe is intact, and the burgundy ground still carries the depth of well-spun wool rather than the flat tone of a rug that has been over-washed. At just under 13 feet long it sits comfortably where most buyers shop for 9x12 Persian rugs, with a little extra length to float a sofa and two chairs without crowding the border. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming the origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The drawing here is curvilinear rather than the stiff lattice some Joshagan weavers favor. A lobed navy medallion sits dead center with slender pendant finials reaching top and bottom, its core stacked in ivory and sky blue around a small 4 petal rosette. Around that the field runs as a dense all over floral composition: thin vines swinging into palmettes, serrated leaves, rosettes and small cypress-like sprays, mirrored across both axes so the eye reads order before it reads detail. Deep navy spandrels close the 4 corners with ivory arabesque scrollwork, and the border system runs 5 bands deep, a wide navy main border of alternating palmettes and flowerheads flanked by sky blue and ivory guard stripes carrying a running vine.

A Burgundy Field Worked in Ivory, Navy and Soft Pink

The ground is a true burgundy red, warm and slightly plummy where the light catches the pile and darker in the pressed direction, which is exactly what good hand-spun wool does. Against it the palette is broader than the first glance suggests: ivory and cream do the outlining, navy blue anchors the medallion, spandrels and main border, and inside those dark areas the weaver dropped in soft pink blossoms, burnt orange highlights, olive green leaves and small touches of beige and black. Sky blue appears twice, once in the medallion core and again as a full guard band, and it is the color that keeps the rug from reading as a solid red floor. Nothing is faded or run, and the contrast between the light borders and the deep field holds up from across a room.

Joshagan Weaving in Central Persia

Joshagan is a small weaving town north of Isfahan whose looms have been running since the Safavid period, close enough to the city workshops to borrow their floral vocabulary but firmly a village tradition in construction: wool pile on a cotton foundation, a symmetrical knot, and a beat-down heavy enough to make the rug sit flat and take traffic for generations. That is what you are holding here, a workshop-grade drawing executed with village toughness. The 1970s date puts it in semi-antique territory, old enough for the wool to have mellowed and for the colors to have settled, and if you want to understand how weavers, dealers and collectors date an Oriental rug, this piece is a textbook example of the clues to read.