10'2" x 13'5" Persian Kashan Rug | Navy Blue All-Over Floral | Signed Cartouche

A signed room-size piece in the classic central Persian idiom, this rug covers 10'2" x 13'5" of floor with a deep navy ground carried edge to edge in fine ivory and sky blue flowerheads. The weaver put his name in a small cartouche worked into the ivory guard border, which is the mark of a workshop piece rather than an anonymous commercial weave, and the pile stands a full 3/8" high on a cotton foundation with no wear, no repair and no thin spots. Anyone weighing up Persian Kashan rugs should note how tightly the drawing holds together at this scale, since a field this large is where sloppy weaving shows first. It sits comfortably in the 10x13 Persian rug class that suits a full seating group or a 10 seat table, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

At the center sits a compact lobed medallion in ivory and pale blue, built around a single red rosette and ringed by 8 petal blossoms and small serrated leaves, with a slender pendant finial reaching top and bottom. Rather than clearing the field around it, the weaver let the all-over floral layout run straight through: broad palmettes, cupped rosettes, curling saz leaves and fine vine scroll fill every inch of the navy ground and meet the border without spandrels. The drawing is mirrored across both axes, so the 4 corners repeat each other exactly, a good test of cartoon discipline on a rug this wide. Framing it is a main border of alternating palmettes and rosettes linked by vine, set against navy, flanked by light blue guard stripes carrying a meandering leaf and blossom chain, with narrow ivory minor bands stepping the eye out to the selvage. The result reads as formal and traditional from across the room and as an extremely busy, precise piece of floral drawing up close.

A Deep Navy Ground with Ivory and Sky Blue Detail

The field is a true dark navy, close to midnight, and it behaves like a jewel case: every lighter color set against it gains weight. Ivory and soft cream do most of the work in the blossoms and in the narrow border stripes, while a clear sky blue fills the outer guard bands and reappears inside leaves and petal tips across the field. Warmer notes are used sparingly and deliberately, with mustard gold outlining flowerheads in the guard borders, muted olive and pistachio green running through the leaf work, soft terracotta and rust in the palmette hearts, and the occasional pinpoint of deep red at a flower center. The wool takes light unevenly in the best way, so the navy shifts between near black in shadow and a saturated ink blue where the pile catches the sun. Against pale oak, limestone or a light stained floor the contrast is emphatic; over dark wood the ivory drawing is what carries the room.

Kashan Weaving and Workshop Quality

Kashan lies in central Persia north of Isfahan and has been a weaving town since the Safavid court workshops, which is why its rugs still follow a court formula: a formal medallion, curved floral drawing and soft, lustrous local wool that polishes with use rather than dulling. It is also the design most Americans have seen without knowing the name, since when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This example is workshop rather than village work, evident in the even knotting across all 13 feet of length, the straight sides, the clean single wefted rows visible in the close-up, and the signed cartouche the weaver placed in the border. Wool pile on a cotton foundation at 3/8" gives it real body underfoot, enough to take the traffic of a living room or dining room for decades, and the pile is still full and unworn.