🌹 A Vintage Hamadan Medallion Rug from Mid-20th Century Persia

The Hamadan medallion rug is one of the most recognizable and consistently produced formats in Persian rug history — a bold central medallion on an open field, corner spandrels echoing the medallion's motifs, a border system of classical Persian design, all woven in Hamadan's specific single-weft construction that gives these rugs their particular weight and feel. 🏛️ This vintage example, hand-knotted from 100% natural wool in Hamadan during the 2nd Quarter of the 20th Century (approximately 1925–1950), brings the red floral medallion design in a pre-loved piece with full pile and the honest condition of a 75-to-100-year-old textile. 3 ft 7 in by 6 ft 8 in. Rug ID: K1936.

📜 Hamadan: The City of Weavers

Hamadan is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world — the ancient Ecbatana of the Medes, a city at the western end of the Silk Road that has served as a center of commerce, culture, and craftsmanship for more than three thousand years. 🌍 The rug weaving tradition of Hamadan and its surrounding villages developed within this ancient urban context, with the city serving as both production center and market hub for the rugs made in its workshops and in the dozens of surrounding villages that produced for the Hamadan trade.

Hamadan rugs have a distinctive technical identity: they are woven with a single-weft construction — only one thread of weft between each row of knots, compared to the double-weft construction of many other Persian weaving centers. 🧵 This single-weft technique produces a rug with a slightly more open structure and a specific texture that is immediately recognizable to collectors familiar with Persian rug construction. The natural wool pile creates the specific material quality of Hamadan work.

🌹 The Red Floral Medallion: A Persian Classic

The central medallion format is among the most celebrated achievements of Persian rug design — a bold, centered focal point that organizes the entire field around a single dominant form, with corner spandrel motifs that echo and extend the medallion's geometric and floral vocabulary. 🌸 The red floral medallion of this rug is a direct expression of that tradition: the warm assertive red of the medallion against the lighter field color creates the maximum-contrast visual focus that the medallion format is designed to achieve.

The geometric and floral patterns that surround the medallion — the characteristic Hamadan vocabulary of angular floral forms rendered with the directness that single-weft construction encourages — create a composition that is simultaneously bold and highly detailed. 🎨 Mid-20th century Hamadan production represents some of the most consistently accomplished work of the tradition — made within the living cultural context of Persian rug weaving, with natural dyes and traditionally sourced materials.

📐 Scale, Condition, and Age

At 3 ft 7 in by 6 ft 8 in, this rug functions as an accent piece, a corridor runner, or a bedroom accent alongside the bed. 🏡 The format is classic for Hamadan production — a size that accommodates a seating area in a smaller room, a corridor run, or an intimate dining table arrangement.

Condition: pre-loved with full pile intact. 🛡️ The piece shows some minor damage at the ends — the evidence of approximately 75 to 100 years of life and use in its original context. The pile is full and the medallion composition is completely intact and readable, while the ends show the minor wear that wool textiles of this age accumulate. It has been professionally cleaned and is ready for display or use. The photographs were taken under natural light and accurately represent the rug's true color and condition.

🌹 Vintage Persian Craft, Honest Condition

The vintage Hamadan medallion rug from the 2nd Quarter of the 20th Century is a piece of genuine Persian weaving history at its most accessible — a red floral medallion in the classic Hamadan vocabulary, professionally cleaned, honestly represented. 💎 The Silk Road passed through Hamadan for three thousand years. This rug carries a fraction of that history.

Rug ID: K1936 🏷️