10'7" x 18' Persian Kashan Rug | Red All Over Floral with Navy Medallion | 1970s Semi Antique

A rug this long is a commitment, and this one earns it. Measuring 10'7" x 18', it is a true room-swallowing piece from the 1970s, hand-knotted in central Persia with a wool pile on a cotton foundation and finished with a narrow red selvage and ivory fringe at both ends. What separates it from most pieces in the oversize Persian rugs group is the discipline of the drawing: the weaver kept the all over vine perfectly balanced across 18 feet of length without the design drifting or the medallion slipping off center. The pile is still full and even, the wool has taken on the quiet sheen that only 50 years of settling gives, and the colors have softened into one another rather than fading apart. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The field is a classic Kashan combination of two ideas at once: a dense all over lattice of scrolling vine and a single anchoring medallion at the center. That medallion is a lobed navy cartouche with a sky blue inner pool and an ivory 8 petal rosette at its heart, with slender pendants reaching north and south along the long axis. Around it the field runs with palmettes, split leaves, curling serrated saz leaves, lotus blossoms and small flowering sprays whose stems fan out in symmetrical pairs. Navy corner spandrels close the four corners and echo the medallion drawing in miniature. The border system is deep and layered: a wide navy main band carrying alternating palmettes and rose rosettes joined by a reciprocal vine, framed on both sides by ivory guard stripes of turning flowerheads, then narrow rose and navy minor bands, and finally a fine outer stripe. Nothing is repeated lazily; the florals rotate through several forms so the eye keeps finding new detail.

A Deep Red Field Against Indigo and Ivory

The ground is a warm true red, closer to a ripe crimson than a brick or a burgundy, and it reads slightly deeper along the ends where the light catches the pile at a different angle. Against it the borders and spandrels are a very dark indigo navy that photographs almost black in the wide shots and opens up into real blue in the close-ups. The third color doing the heavy lifting is ivory, used for the two guard stripes and for the outlining that traces every vine and petal, which is what keeps such a busy field legible. Inside the medallion a soft sky blue pool lifts the center and gives the rug its one clear cool accent. Scattered through the florals are rose pink, sage and olive green, camel gold, a muted terracotta and small notes of brown, all of them in the mellow register of naturally aged wool dyes rather than anything bright. Red and navy carry the room, ivory keeps it crisp.

Kashan Weaving and Why It Holds Up

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that set the standard for formal Persian carpet drawing. The town is known for two things: soft, lustrous local wool that takes dye beautifully and holds a sheen for generations, and a house formula of a red field, a navy lobed medallion and a navy border that has been refined so many times it has become the default mental image of a Persian rug. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This example is workshop weaving in that tradition, tight and regular on a cotton warp and weft, with the knot count high enough to hold the fine curved vine work you see in the border close-ups. If you want the fuller background on the town, the wool and the design vocabulary, our Persian Kashan rugs guide covers it in detail, and the how to date an Oriental rug article explains the wear, dye and back-of-rug clues that place a piece like this in the 1970s.