Provenance · Birjand Moud

Moud (Mud) is a small town in the Birjand district of Khorasan, in eastern Persia near the Afghan border. Its weavers built their reputation on a single thing: accuracy. Moud rugs are knotted at densities that let the drawing stay razor-sharp, and the workshops there have kept to the classical repertoire rather than chasing fashion. The result is a rug that reads as quietly formal — nothing improvised, nothing loose.

Design and Construction

The field is worked in the Mahi pattern — the “fish” design of diamond lattice, curved leaves and small rosettes that Moud shares with Tabriz and Herat. Here it runs across an ivory ground in indigo, rose, olive and soft blue, so densely that the lattice reads almost as texture until you come close.

At the centre sits a cusped medallion in deep blue with a red heart and a salmon outline, extended by slender pendants at either end and answered by matching blue spandrels in the corners. The main border runs on madder red with cartouches and palmettes, framed by narrow blue and olive guard stripes and closed by a dark navy selvedge.

Material and Weave

The pile is 95% wool and 5% silk on a fine cotton warp. The silk is not spread across the surface but reserved for the highlights — individual rosettes and the contour lines of the medallion — where it catches light against the matte wool ground. It is a restrained use of the material, and in a rug of this scale it does more than a fully silk-piled surface would: the eye is drawn to the drawing rather than to the sheen.

Quality · Very Fine

Knotted at approximately 420,000 knots per square metre, or roughly 270 kpsi (knots per square inch). The pile is kept low at 8 mm — short enough that the Mahi lattice holds its definition and the silk highlights sit flush with the surface rather than standing proud.

Presence in the Room

At 141 × 103 cm (1.45 m²) the piece answers the widely searched 100 × 150 cm format:

• Beside a bed or a reading chair: the scale suits a rug that is looked at closely rather than walked across.
• Entrance hall: a formal welcome, with the low pile easy to keep clean.
• Under a small table: the ivory ground lifts a darker room without dominating it.

Specifications

Responsible Origin · Label STEP

Djoharian is a certified partner of Label STEP, the international fair-trade organisation for hand-knotted rugs — fair pay for the weavers, no child labour, and ecologically responsible production.

Djoharian — Since 1967

Our family business was founded in 1967, with roots in the Grand Carpet Bazaar of Tehran — five decades of trade and connoisseurship behind every piece we offer.

Service and Care

Every piece is inspected in our atelier in Lohr am Main before dispatch. For expert washing and repair we offer our own professional rug cleaning service. Secure and fast worldwide shipping, fully insured, with personal consultation in our showroom or by video call.