10'3" x 15'4" Persian Kashan Rug | Cobalt Blue All-Over Floral | Semi-Antique Oversize

This is a semi-antique, hand-knotted Kashan measuring 10'3" x 15'4", woven in central Persia on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" wool pile that still stands full and even from selvage to selvage. It reads as a formal room rug rather than a display piece: a deep cobalt blue ground carrying an all-over floral lattice, a soft ivory central rosette, and a wide palmette border framed by lavender-ivory guard stripes. At just over 15 feet long it belongs with oversize Persian rugs built for large living rooms, long dining tables and open-plan floors, and the classic drawing places it squarely in the tradition of Persian Kashan rugs. Condition is excellent, the fringe and ends are intact, and the rug ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The field is an all-over floral composition rather than an open medallion layout, built from thin curving vines that link palmettes, serrated leaves and small multi-petal blossoms across the entire 15'4" length. At the center sits a pale 8 petal rosette ringed by curling boteh leaves and a scalloped cartouche of arabesque scroll, with the same motif answered at the 4 corners of the inner field so the pattern resolves properly instead of running off the edge. Large vase and palmette groups anchor both ends. The main border is wide and confident, carrying alternating palmettes and rosettes on a dark ground linked by a continuous vine, and it is separated from the field by narrow floral guard stripes on a light lavender-ivory ground, with a further set of minor stripes outside it. The density of the drawing is the point here: the vine work is fine enough that the field never looks busy from standing height, and the close-up shows how cleanly each flower head is outlined before the color is filled in.

Cobalt Blue, Ivory and the Supporting Palette

The ground is a saturated cobalt blue that deepens toward midnight in the shaded areas and shows a faint plum or aubergine warmth where the light catches the pile, which is typical of a well-aged indigo dye. Against it the palette is warm rather than cold: ivory and cream do most of the drawing, backed by wheat gold, honey and camel in the larger palmettes, with soft rose and apricot picked out in the small flower centers. The most interesting note is the teal green, used in the leaf tips, the bases of the vases and the corner palmettes, which cools the gold and keeps the whole field from reading as brown. The guard stripes lift the composition with a pale lavender-ivory that behaves almost like a line of light around the field, while the main border stays dark so the rug frames itself on a wood or stone floor. Buyers hunting in the navy blue and blues range will find this one sits a step brighter and more saturated than a standard navy Kashan.

Kashan: Weaving Town and Weave Quality

Kashan lies in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops, which is why the town's rugs are drawn with curved lines and flowing vine rather than village geometry. Local wool is soft and lustrous, and it takes indigo and madder deeply, which is exactly what you see in this cobalt field. The weave here is town workshop work: a cotton warp and weft beaten straight, a short and level 3/8" pile that holds detail in motifs only an inch or two across, and neat selvages with the ends finished and fringed rather than trimmed back. Kashan is also the pattern most Americans have already seen without naming it, since when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. A piece of this size, in this condition, from this town, is the kind of rug that gets bought once and stays in the room for decades.