11'5" x 16'6" Persian Mashad Rug | Navy Floral Medallion | Woven Inscription
This is a room-filling 11'5" x 16'6" Mashad, hand-knotted in the Khorasan province of northeast Persia on a cotton foundation with a pile of 100% new wool. The drawing is classic workshop work: a star shaped ivory medallion floating on a midnight navy field that is packed corner to corner with vases, palmettes and shield shaped cartouches, then held in place by a wide brick red main border. A single detail separates it from ordinary village production of this size, a small woven inscription set into the light blue guard stripe, which marks it as a piece the weaver was willing to put a name to. The wool has the soft, slightly lustrous handle that the best Persian Mashad rugs are known for, the pile stands full and even across all 188 square feet, and the condition is excellent with no repairs or thin areas. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and construction.
Design and Motifs
The center holds a many pointed ivory medallion with a pale blue rosette at its heart, ringed by a thin camel outline and filled with fine curling vinework. From there the design radiates outward in strict symmetry. Above and below the medallion sit 2 large red vases, each with a flared neck and a fan of stems rising out of it, flanked by shield shaped cartouches in red, light blue and ivory that repeat down both long sides. Between them the navy ground carries detached blossoms, serrated leaves, carnations and small ivory daisies on a continuous vine, so the field reads as a filled garden rather than open space. Ivory spandrels close off all 4 corners of the field with the same floral vocabulary in reverse, dark on light. The border system runs 3 bands deep: a brick red main border with alternating ivory rosettes and red palmette panels, framed on both sides by narrow light blue and ivory guard stripes of running vine. At this knot count the curves stay true, with no blocky stepping where the vines turn.
A Midnight Navy Field Against Brick Red and Ivory
The field is a deep midnight navy, almost blue black where the pile lies away from the light and clearly blue where it catches it, which is what gives the rug its weight on a floor this large. Against that ground the palette is warm and deliberate: brick and tomato red in the vases, cartouches and main border, a clean unbleached ivory in the medallion, spandrels and rosettes, and a soft powder blue that runs through the guard stripes and the smaller cartouche centers. Rose pink appears in the smaller blossoms, with camel and a dull gold used for outlines and a few leaf forms, plus occasional touches of mid brown. Small dots of pure ivory are scattered across the navy as tiny flower heads, and they keep the dark field from going flat under lamplight. The reds are even in tone from end to end with no harsh synthetic edge, and the ivory is a warm cream rather than a cold white, so the whole surface sits comfortably with antique wood, brass and darker upholstery.
Mashad Weaving in Khorasan
Mashad is the great pilgrimage city of Khorasan in northeast Persia, and its city workshops have built their reputation on exactly this format: large medallion rugs woven to furnish big formal rooms, drawn on paper by a designer and executed by a team on a single loom over a long period. The Khorasan wool is the reason these rugs feel the way they do, long stapled and soft, taking dye deeply and holding a luster that short crisp wool never develops. Here it is knotted at roughly 220 to 240 knots per square inch on a tight cotton warp, dense enough to carry the fine vinework and the curved outlines of the medallion while leaving a pile with real body underfoot. A woven inscription in the inner guard border points to a named workshop piece rather than anonymous commercial production. At 11'5" x 16'6" it belongs with the oversize Persian rugs made for long dining rooms and double height great rooms, where a 9x12 would look stranded and this one will run wall to wall under the furniture.
