10'7" x 14' Persian Kashan Rug | Old Red Field with Navy Floral Medallion | Excellent Condition

This is the formula that made Persian Kashan rugs the benchmark for formal floor covering: a deep red field, a navy lobed medallion floating dead center, and an allover cage of curving vines that never once loses its line. At 10'7" x 14" the drawing has room to breathe, and the weaver used it, filling the field with palmettes, rosettes and small bouquets rather than repeating one motif to the edge. It is hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation, the pile is full and even across the whole field, the ends keep their original ivory fringe, and both sides lie flat with no ripple. An older piece that has clearly been kept well, it ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a small ivory 8 petal rosette set on a pale blue cartouche, and from there the medallion opens outward in rings: a light blue inner ground carrying pink and red blossoms, then a broad indigo lobed frame filled with ivory arabesque tracery, sage leaves and tiny five petal flowers. Slender pendants run off the top and bottom of the medallion into the field, each one finished with a serrated palmette. Around it the red ground carries a continuous allover pattern of palmettes, lanceolate leaves, grape-like flower clusters and open rosettes, all linked by thin vines that mirror perfectly across the long axis. The 4 corners drop into navy spandrels drawn with the same vocabulary, so the field reads as one composition rather than a medallion stuck on a background. The main border is indigo, alternating large ivory and salmon palmette cartouches with rosette bouquets, and it is flanked either side by narrow guard stripes of running rosettes on light blue. All 4 corners resolve cleanly, which is the first thing to check on a rug this size and the thing village looms usually get wrong.

The Red, the Indigo and Everything Between

The field is a warm brick red, closer to tomato than to burgundy, with the gentle tonal shift across the width that hand-dyed wool gives as it ages. Against it the medallion and border sit in a dark indigo navy that is almost black in low light and opens into visible blue where the pile catches the sun. Inside the medallion the weaver dropped in a medium sky blue, the single brightest passage in the rug, and it works as a focal point from across a room. Ivory does the structural work: it outlines the medallion, draws the vines, and forms the palmette cartouches in the border, which keeps the red and navy from running together. Between those four tones sit sage and olive green in the leaves, rose pink and salmon in the flower heads, and small touches of soft gold and terracotta in the smaller blossoms. The overall effect is a classic red and blue Persian palette, but softened, with enough green and pink in it to sit against warm woods, brass and cream walls without shouting.

Kashan Weaving and the Quality of This Rug

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops; the local wool is soft and lustrous, which is why Kashan pile takes dye so deeply and gains sheen as it is walked on. The town settled on one classic formula, red field, navy lobed medallion, ivory spandrels, and repeated it for generations until it became the picture most people carry in their heads when they hear the words Persian rug. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. The back of this piece, shown in the last photograph, tells the rest of the story: small knots packed in straight even rows, no bald patches, no crooked lines, the pattern reading as sharply from behind as it does from the front, which is workshop weaving rather than village work. Among 10x14 Persian rugs this is a genuine room size piece, wide enough to carry a full dining table with the chairs pulled out or to anchor a large seating group with the front legs on the wool.