10'10" x 14'5" Persian Kashan Rug | Navy Blue Floral Medallion | Signed Border Cartouche

This Persian Kashan rug measures 10'10" x 14'5" and takes the classic central Persian formula and flips it, setting the whole composition on a deep midnight navy ground rather than the familiar red. It is hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation, with a firm handle, an even low pile and straight, disciplined sides that hold their shape across a room of this length. The main border carries a small woven cartouche, the signature panel the weaver used to mark the piece, which puts it in a different class from the unsigned commercial Kashan output of the same period. At this footprint it works as a true anchor piece for a large formal room, and it sits squarely in the family of 10x14 Persian rugs that furnish a full seating group without exposing the floor. Every rug we ship travels with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and construction.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a large layered medallion built like a starburst: a small rosette core, a ring of pale lotus petals, then a radiating web of ivory lattice cells filled with tiny blossoms, and finally a crown of 16 teardrop petals set around the outer edge. Above and below it rise slender pendant finials rather than heavy anchors, which keeps the vertical axis light. The rest of the field is a dense all-over drawing of palmettes, split acanthus leaves, curling serrated leaves and small vases, all carried on a scrolling vine system that repeats in perfect mirror across both halves. The 4 corners are drawn as quarter cartouches that echo the medallion instead of simple blank spandrels. Framing it all is a wide main border of alternating lobed cartouches and floral rosettes, flanked by several narrow guard stripes of running vine and reciprocal dart motifs, the outermost one finished in a fine barber-pole stripe.

Navy, Periwinkle and the Light Between Them

The field is a true midnight navy, deep enough to read almost black in low light and to read as saturated indigo under a lamp, which is why it belongs with the best navy blue Persian rugs. Against that ground the drawing is worked in a soft periwinkle lavender, chalky ivory, pale celadon green, warm ochre gold and small sparks of brick rust and tomato red at the flower centers. The main border shifts the balance completely: there the periwinkle becomes the ground color and the navy retreats to outline duty, so the frame glows pale against the dark interior and the rug gains a clear edge from across the room. There is no harsh contrast anywhere, no bright white and no hot red. The palette reads cool and silvery overall, with the gold accents supplying just enough warmth to keep the navy from going flat on a dark floor.

Kashan Weaving and Workshop Quality

Kashan sits in central Persia north of Isfahan and has been a weaving town since the Safavid court workshops, which is why its classic medallion and all-over floral layout became the reference point for formal Persian design worldwide. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. The town's own wool is soft and lustrous, and it takes indigo particularly well, which is what allows a navy ground of this depth to stay clean rather than muddy. The weave here is tight and even, the outlines of every leaf and petal hold their curve without stepping, and the cartouche in the border tells you this came off a named workshop loom rather than a village loom. Laid flat, a rug of these proportions shows the symmetry that separates careful workshop drafting from copied cartoons.