10'1" x 12'9" Persian Kashan Rug | Navy Floral Field, Red Medallion | Signed Cartouche

This is a full room size Persian Kashan rug in the classic town formula, worked in reverse: instead of the usual red ground, the weaver laid the entire field in deep navy and let the red come forward only in the medallion, the spandrels and the outer guard stripe. It measures 10'1" x 12'9", is hand-knotted in fine wool on a cotton foundation, and carries a woven signature cartouche in one end border, which in Kashan almost always means a named workshop rather than an anonymous village loom. The pile is even and full, the ivory fringe and selvages are intact, and the rug is in excellent condition throughout. A certificate of authenticity is included with every rug we ship, documenting origin, materials and construction. At this size it sits comfortably in the 10x13 range, so if you are comparing options, our 10x13 Persian rugs are the group to browse alongside it.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is textbook Kashan and beautifully disciplined. At the center sits a lobed, pointed medallion outlined in ivory, with a pale blue inner cartouche built around an 8 petal rosette and filled with curling split-leaf arabesques. Above and below, tall red pendants reach out into the field and finish in small palmette finials. The field itself is not empty ground but a continuous all-over lattice of vine scroll, Shah Abbasi palmettes, serrated leaves, rosettes and small blossoms, each one drawn with the curved line that only a fine urban knot count allows. The 4 corner spandrels repeat the red of the medallion and carry their own miniature floral compositions, giving the composition its frame within a frame. Around that runs a wide navy main border of alternating palmettes and cusped floral cartouches, flanked by several narrow ivory and blue guard stripes of running vine. Look closely at the end border and you will find the weaver's signature cartouche worked in green and ivory against red, a small mark of authorship that collectors always look for.

A Study in Navy, Red and Ivory

The dominant color is a deep midnight navy that reads almost black in low light and opens into true indigo where the light hits the pile. Against it, the reds do all the heavy lifting: a warm brick red in the medallion core, the spandrels and the outer stripe, cooling toward a softer rose in the smaller flowerheads. Ivory is the drawing color, outlining the medallion, tracing the vine scroll and lighting up the guard stripes so the whole layout stays legible from across a room. Between them sit two distinct blues, a chalky sky blue in the medallion center and the larger palmettes, and a clearer mid blue in the border cartouches. Scattered through the field are touches of soft green in the leaves and small notes of gold and pale apricot in the blossoms. The result is a dark, formal palette that is far richer in person than a photograph suggests, and one that anchors light floors, pale walls and cream upholstery without ever looking heavy.

Kashan: Central Persia's Workshop City

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that set the standard for the classical medallion carpet. The town is known for soft, lustrous local wool and for a tight, regular urban weave that holds fine curvilinear drawing without the line breaking into steps. That discipline is visible here in the smooth outline of the medallion and in the unbroken sweep of the vine scroll across a field more than 12 feet long, which is far harder to keep symmetrical at this scale than on a small rug. The back, shown here against a ruler, is clean and tightly packed, with the knot nodes sitting in even rows. Kashan is also the design most people have seen without knowing its name: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. Signed, room size and in excellent condition, this one is a serious example of the type rather than a decorative copy of it.