6'9" x 10'1" Persian Isfahan Rug | Ivory Medallion, Wool and Silk on Silk | Signed Yazdani, 600 KPSI

This Persian Isfahan rug measures 6'9" x 10'1", is knotted at approximately 600 knots per square inch, and is signed 3 times. The border cartouche at one end reads "Iran Isfahan Yazdani," naming the workshop, and 2 smaller signatures woven in tan on the ivory field read "Bafandeh Bahar-Ghomi," bafandeh meaning weaver, so the piece records both the atelier and the hand that knotted it. The pile is wool with silk highlights on a silk foundation, which is why the fringe at both ends is silk and why the lines in the drawing stay so crisp at this density. It ships with our certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The composition is the classic Isfahan medallion and corner layout. A round lobed medallion sits at the center with a navy ground, a 16-point star outline in taupe, and an inner rosette in tan filled with small blossoms. Above and below it, 2 small pendant cartouches in taupe and navy repeat the medallion palette on a smaller scale. The ivory field around them is covered with a continuous network of scrolling vines: split-leaf arabesques in blue-grey and brown, Shah Abbas palmettes, rosettes and small buds, all connected by thin navy stems so that no area of the field is left empty. The 4 corner spandrels are stepped and scalloped, taupe on the outside with a navy inner corner filled with palmettes and blossoms. The main border is taupe, carrying large palmettes alternating with round clusters of small flowers on a meandering vine, framed on both sides by ivory guard borders with a vine and palmette repeat and thin brown outer bands.

Colors of This Isfahan Rug

The palette is restrained and cool. Ivory dominates the field and the 2 guard borders. Navy provides the deepest tone, in the medallion ground, the inner corners of the spandrels and the outlines of the vines and palmettes. Taupe, a soft greige, fills the main border, the outer spandrels and the outline of the medallion. Light blue and a paler sky blue pick out leaves, petals and the border palmettes, with a small amount of blue-grey in the split leaves. Brick red and a darker burgundy appear only as accents inside the palmettes and blossoms, which keeps the rug reading as ivory, navy and taupe from across a room. Olive green, tan, brown and a touch of blush complete the drawing, and the silk highlights catch the light in the flowers and along the border.

Isfahan Weaving and the Yazdani Signature

Isfahan sits in central Persia and has been a weaving capital since the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century. Its reputation rests on drawing: curved lines, flowing vines and precise detail that only hold together at a high knot count, and 600 knots per square inch is the level where that drawing comes fully into focus. A silk foundation is the mark of the finer Isfahan grades, since silk warps allow a tighter, thinner weave than cotton, and wool with silk highlights on top of it is the traditional combination for the city's best work. A signed piece is a workshop piece rather than an anonymous commercial weave, and this one goes a step further by naming both the Yazdani atelier and the weaver Bahar-Ghomi, so the rug carries its own record of who made it.