10'2" x 14'1" Persian Kashan Rug | Navy Field with Red Lobed Medallion | Excellent Condition

This is the classic city formula turned inside out: instead of the usual red ground, the weaver laid the whole 10'2" x 14'1" field in deep navy and reserved the red for the medallion, the spandrels and the main border. The result is a room-size Persian Kashan rug that reads dark and quiet from across the room, then opens into hundreds of small blossoms as you walk up to it. Hand-knotted on a cotton foundation with a fine, lustrous wool pile, it is in excellent condition with even pile from end to end and clean, tightly finished selvedges. It ships with a certificate of authenticity, and the true 14 foot length puts it comfortably in the 10x14 Persian rugs group for large living rooms and long dining tables.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the full Kashan medallion scheme. At the center sits a red lobed medallion with stepped shoulders and slender pendants top and bottom, and inside it an ivory cartouche carrying an 8 petal rosette surrounded by small blue and rose blossoms. Around the medallion the navy field runs as an all-over floral: curling serrated leaves, palmettes, rosettes and thin vines that link one blossom to the next without ever repeating in an obvious grid. The 4 corners carry red spandrels with ivory cartouches worked in blue and green, so the eye is pulled back to the corners after it leaves the center. The wide navy main border is filled with alternating palmettes and vine scroll, flanked by light blue and ivory guard stripes that frame the whole piece cleanly.

The Navy, Red and Ivory Palette

The ground is a genuine dark navy, close to midnight blue, with the faintest violet cast where the light catches the pile at an angle. Against it the medallion, spandrels and border cartouches sit in a warm tomato red that leans slightly toward brick rather than cherry. Ivory does the structural work: it outlines the medallion, fills the corner cartouches and carries the inner guard stripe, which is what keeps a dark field this busy from turning muddy. Inside the flowers you will find sky blue, dusty rose, soft sage green, pale gold and touches of brown, each used in small quantities so the overall reading stays navy and red. The wool has a natural sheen that lifts the lighter blossoms and deepens the navy as you move around the rug.

Kashan: Weaving in Central Persia

Kashan lies in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its workshops trace their drawing straight back to the Safavid court tradition. The town is known for soft, lustrous local wool and for a house style so consistent that most people picture a Kashan when they picture a Persian rug at all: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. The back of this piece, shown against a ruler, is tight and regular, with the knot rows even across the full 10'2" width and the design staying crisp through the finest vine work, which is the mark of a proper town weaver rather than a village copy. That density is also why a Kashan of this size holds up under decades of real traffic.