10'3" x 13'7" Persian Kashan Rug | Navy Blue Floral Field, Red Medallion | Signed Cartouche

A signed piece in a true room size, this 10'3" x 13'7" Kashan was hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation in central Persia, and the weaver put his name in a small cartouche at the top of the border rather than leaving the rug anonymous. The pile stands a full 3/8" and sits even from selvage to selvage, with no low spots, no repairs and clean, original ends. Among Persian Kashan rugs this is the classic formal statement, a rug scaled for a dining table with chairs pulled out or a full living room seating group, and it is one of the more usable of our large Persian rugs. It ships with a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the Kashan medallion formula and executes it with unusual patience. At center sits a pointed ivory cartouche holding a single sky blue 8 petal rosette, ringed by scrolling vine and framed in a deep red lobed medallion whose outline steps out into finials at top and bottom. Around it the navy field is filled edge to edge with an all over lattice of curling palmettes, split leaves, carnations and small rosettes, every stem drawn on a curve rather than broken into angles. The 4 corner spandrels repeat the red of the medallion and are outlined in ivory, so the eye reads a clear oval at the center of the room. The border runs 7 bands deep: a wide navy main band of alternating palmettes and rosettes on a scrolling vine, flanked by sky blue and ivory guard stripes with a fine floral meander, then narrow reciprocal edging at the very outside.

The Navy Blue Palette

The ground is a deep navy blue that leans slightly violet under warm light and reads almost black at the edges of the room. Against it the weaver worked a genuinely broad palette: tomato and brick red in the medallion, spandrels and scattered blossoms, clean ivory in the medallion center and the guard stripes, and a soft sky blue that appears again and again in rosette hearts and leaf tips, keeping the dark field from closing up. Rose pink, ochre gold, sage green and a faint aubergine fill out the smaller flowers, and because each of those colors is used in small doses the overall impression stays formal rather than busy. The wool takes light well, so the field shifts between cool indigo and a warmer plum tone depending on where you stand, which is exactly what you want from a rug this size.

Kashan: Weaving Town and Quality

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its workshops trace their drawing straight back to the Safavid court tradition. The local wool is soft and lustrous, which is why Kashan pile keeps its sheen for generations of foot traffic, and the town's weavers are known for holding a curved line across a very large field without the pattern drifting. This is also the most familiar Persian rug in American rooms: 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 straight rows of knots and no crowding at the corners, the mark of a workshop loom kept under proper tension across more than 13 feet of length. The signed cartouche confirms it left the loom as a named piece rather than a commercial run.