9'4"x13'8" Persian Isfahan Rug | Red Field Navy Border | Never Used | 220-240 KPSI

About 30 years old and it looks like it came off the loom last week. This is a Persian Isfahan measuring 9'4" x 13'8", hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation at 220 to 240 knots per square inch, and it has never been on a floor. The pile is standing full, the reds have not moved, the sides are straight and the fringe is untouched. A certificate of authenticity comes with it.

Design and Motifs

The medallion sits on a navy cushion at the middle of the field, a small lobed core in pale ice blue holding an 8 point rosette in olive, brown and red, wrapped by 8 cream cartouches that each carry their own tiny flower study. Above and below it, cream pendants reach out along the vertical axis and dissolve into the red. The navy ground around the medallion is filled with pale blue and cream blossoms on hair thin red vines, which is where Isfahan pulls away from other weaving towns: the drawing stays fluid at a scale most looms cannot hold. The red field is packed with an all-over floral, curling vines, lotus palmettes, rosettes, serrated leaves and small bud clusters, with cream and ice blue doing most of the work so the pattern reads clearly against the red rather than disappearing into it. The corner spandrels are pale blue and cream with their own vinework and a curved inner edge. The border runs five bands: a wide navy main band of alternating palmettes and leafy sprays, ivory guard stripes carrying small repeating flowerheads, and narrow reciprocal edging at the outside. Watch the four corners where the main border turns. The pattern resolves on all of them without a break.

Colors in Detail

The field is a clean true red, bright rather than brick, with just enough blue in it to stay away from orange, and after 30 years in storage it is as strong at one end as the other. The main border and the medallion cushion are a deep inky navy that reads almost black in low light and gives the rug its formal frame. Between them the ivory guard bands are warm rather than white, a soft cream that keeps the whole thing from feeling cold. Inside the field the secondary colors carry the pattern: a pale ice blue that appears in nearly every blossom and is the color your eye follows across the rug, a mid cornflower blue in the larger flowerheads, cream and ivory outlining most of the vinework, a soft olive green through the leaves and stems, and a warm gold to camel that turns up in the palmette centers and the border rosettes. There are small hits of brown and rust in the flower cores. Nothing is muddy and nothing has faded. The contrast between the bright red and the near black navy is what makes this rug read from across a room, and the ice blue is what makes it worth looking at up close.

Origin and Weaving

Isfahan sits in central Persia and has been the country's reference point for fine weaving since the Safavid court built its workshops there in the 16th century. What the city is known for is drawing: curved lines, flowing vines and floral detail rendered with a precision that other towns approximate but rarely match, which is only possible when the knot count is high enough to carry it. At 220 to 240 knots per square inch on a cotton foundation this rug has the density to hold every one of those small blossoms in shape across nearly 14 feet, and it has the weight to lie flat and stay flat. Turn it over and the drawing on the back is as sharp as the front, which is the test that separates a real Isfahan from a rug wearing the name. 30 years old, never used, full pile, straight sides and clean fringe throughout.