9' x 13' Persian Bijar Rug | Ivory Floral Field with Rose Medallion | Peacock Motifs

This is the kind of weave that gives Persian Bijar rugs their reputation as the iron rugs of Persia: a heavy, hard-packed wool pile on a cotton foundation, laid out at 9' x 13' with an ivory field that stays luminous from one end to the other. Pick up a corner and you feel the weight immediately, because Bijar weavers beat each row of knots down with a metal comb until the structure is close to rigid. The drawing is unusually generous for a Kurdish piece, with a rose and indigo medallion floating in a field of flowering branches, and the condition here is perfect, with full pile and clean, straight sides. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a large 16 point rose medallion built around a dark rosette core, ringed by a band of blue and rose leaf forms and finished with slender cartouche pendants top and bottom. Around it the ivory field is filled edge to edge with detached flowering sprays, serrated leaves, carnations, lotus heads and curling vine tips, each outlined in a fine dark line that keeps the density readable rather than busy. Look closely at the field and the birds appear: paired peacocks perched on either side of a central vase form, with more birds facing one another near the lower spandrel. Deep navy spandrels close off the 4 corners with their own palmette work, and the main border repeats a turtle palmette and vine chain between narrow floral guard stripes.

Color Palette

The ground is a warm ivory that reads closer to soft cream under lamplight, which is what makes this piece work in rooms where a red field would feel heavy, and it places the rug squarely with the best ivory and beige Persian rugs. Against that ground the medallion runs a clear rose pink into deeper raspberry and wine, while the field flowers alternate between the same rose, a strong madder red and a dusty coral. Blue does the structural work: midnight indigo in the spandrels and main border, with lighter cornflower and teal picked out in the smaller blossoms and in the peacock plumage. Green shows up in restrained doses, mostly in leaf tips and the occasional rosette center, alongside touches of soft gold, camel and brown in the vine work. The overall effect is a light, cheerful palette carried on a dark border that frames it firmly.

Origin and Weaving Quality

Bijar sits in the Kurdish highlands of northwest Persia, in the Garrus district, and the weavers there work on a taut warp with a wet weft that is hammered down hard, so the finished rug is dense, stiff and famously slow to wear. The back of this piece, shown next to a ruler, tells the story: tight, even rows, no slack, and a pile depth that has plenty of life left in it. Kurdish weaving carries a tribal reputation, but a floral medallion drawn this cleanly is town and workshop level work rather than a nomadic sketch, and the regional differences between the various Bijar weaving centers are worth understanding, which is covered in our comparison of Bijar, Bijar Tekab and Bijar Bukan weaving. Buy one of these and you are buying a rug that will outlast the room it goes in.