10'2" x 14'1" Persian Kashan Rug | Red Field with Ivory Medallion | Signed Workshop Piece

This is a full room size Kashan at 10'2" x 14'1", hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and clipped to a 3/8" pile that keeps the drawing sharp from the medallion out to the guard stripes. What separates it from the ordinary run of Persian Kashan rugs is the signature cartouche woven into the top border, visible in the close-up photograph, which tells you a named workshop put its name on the piece rather than letting it leave anonymous. The wool has the soft surface sheen Kashan is known for, the selvedges are tight, and the ends are original with clean ivory fringe. It sits squarely in the 10x14 Persian rugs bracket that suits a large living room or a long dining table with chairs pulled back. A certificate of authenticity is included with the rug.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Kashan formula executed with unusual care. A lobed central medallion carries an ivory core around a small blue rosette, ringed by a navy band of palmettes and serrated leaves, and it finishes top and bottom in slender pendants that taper into the field. Four corner spandrels answer it in ivory, each filled with curling arabesque vine and split palmettes. The field between them is never left empty: a continuous all over vine system carries rosettes, 8 petal blossoms, cypress-like leaf sprays and small bird-shaped buds, all mirrored across the long and short axes so the balance reads instantly from the doorway. The main border is a navy ground with alternating turtle palmettes and flowering stems, framed by paired minor guard stripes of connected rosettes. Look closely at the close-up photographs and you can see the drawing hold its curve cleanly through the tightest scrolls, which is only possible at a high knot density.

The Red and Sky Blue Palette

The field is a deep true red, warm rather than orange, with the faint tonal movement through the pile that comes from natural fleece taking dye at slightly different rates. Against it the sky blue does most of the work: bright cornflower and cerulean blossoms scattered evenly through the vine, sky blue outlining in the guard stripes, and a soft powder blue ring inside the medallion core. A darker navy anchors the main border and the medallion surround, so the eye reads three distinct blues rather than one. Ivory is used sparingly and deliberately, reserved for the medallion center, the corner spandrels and the hairline outlines that keep each motif separate. Accents of soft rose, olive green, gold and a touch of terracotta appear in the individual flower heads, and the reverse of the rug shows those same clear colors running right through to the knot, which is the mark of honest dyeing rather than surface wash.

Kashan Weaving and Quality

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and it has been weaving at court standard since the Safavid workshops of the 16th century. The town's advantage was always local wool, soft and lustrous, which is why a Kashan pile takes light the way it does and why the surface deepens rather than dulls with use. The house formula of a red field, a lobed navy and ivory medallion and ivory spandrels is the single most recognizable image in Persian weaving: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This piece is a workshop weave rather than a village one, dense enough to carry the fine curvilinear drawing, beaten down hard on a cotton foundation, and signed by the maker. Rugs at this size and this level of finish were woven to order and were meant to last several generations of ordinary family use.