10'5" x 13'8" Persian Mahal Rug | Red Floral Field, Ivory Medallion | Distressed Vintage, Sold As Is

This is a room-size Persian Mahal, 10'5" x 13'8", hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation at 180 to 200 knots per square inch, with a bright tomato red field of scattered floral sprays around a small ivory diamond medallion. It is a vintage rug that has been lived on, and it is offered as a distressed piece at a distressed price: the pile is worn low in several places in the field, there is a worn patch in the ivory border, and one stretch of the red outer edge is frayed. All of it is shown in the photographs and in the video, and nothing has been hidden or touched up. What is not worn is honest and handsome, the colors are strong and the design reads clearly from across a room, which makes it a candidate for a family room, a playroom, a country house or anywhere a perfect rug would be wasted, or for a buyer who wants to have the worn spots rewoven and end up with a full-size Mahal for a fraction of the usual cost. A certificate of authenticity from Rugs.net accompanies the rug.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the open Mahal version of the Sarough design: a small central medallion and a field left mostly bare so the flowers float on it. The medallion is an ivory diamond with scalloped edges, holding a denim blue lozenge with a camel rosette at its heart, and a navy and burgundy pendant hangs above and below it. Around the medallion the red field carries large detached sprays of flowers, each one a bunch of blossoms, buds and serrated leaves on a curling stem drawn in navy, salmon, ivory, teal and camel, arranged in loose rows with no vine tying them together. At the top and bottom center a footed vase in blue and ivory holds a tall fan of flowers, and at the 4 corners of the field large denim blue spandrels with scrolling arabesques and salmon palmettes cut in over the red. A navy sawtooth guard, a striped band of red and blue zigzags, and a narrow black band with red and blue blossoms separate the field from the main border, which is ivory and carries alternating rosettes, palmettes and curled leaves in red, navy, teal and camel on a thin vine. A second blossom band, a red and blue zigzag guard and a plain red outer selvage close the frame.

Colors of This Red and Ivory Mahal Rug

The field is a clear tomato red, brighter and more orange than the madder of a Kashan, and because most of the ground is left open it reads as a single strong wash of color across the room. The medallion and the main border are ivory, a warm cream rather than white, and they are the 2 areas that anchor the eye against the red. The spandrels and the medallion core are a denim blue, a mid blue with a gray cast, and a deep navy is used for the outlines, the pendants and the guard bands, so that every spray on the field is edged in dark blue. Inside the flowers the palette runs through salmon and coral pink, a teal green that reads almost turquoise in the leaves, a camel tan, a burgundy, and touches of ivory, with black outlining the border motifs. On the back the colors sit in a lighter key with no bleeding, and the worn areas show the ivory cotton foundation through the red.

Mahal Weaving and Buying a Distressed Rug

Mahal rugs come from the villages around Arak in west central Persia, the same region that produces Sarough, and they are the big, sturdy, room-size cousins of the finer town weaves: cotton foundation, heavy wool pile, a knot count under 200 and a fondness for large-scale floral designs on red or ivory grounds. They were woven for floors, not walls, and this one has clearly done its job. A distressed Mahal is worth buying for 2 reasons: as a working rug in a room where wear does not matter, where its size and color do the same job as a perfect rug for far less money, or as a restoration project, since the foundation is sound, the wear is local and a competent restorer can reweave the low spots and rebind the edge. Either way it belongs among the 10x14 Persian rugs that furnish a whole living room or dining room at once.