10'8" x 13'9" Persian Kashan Rug | Signed Workshop Cartouche | Light Green Field, Fine Wool

The weaver of this 10'8" x 13'9" Persian Kashan rug signed the work: a small cartouche sits at the head of the field, knotted in dark navy on ivory, naming Kashan and the workshop behind it. That alone moves a rug out of the anonymous bazaar category and into workshop production. The field is an uncommon light green, closer to pale celadon than to the deep red most buyers picture when they hear Kashan, and the drawing laid across it is fine, evenly spaced and drawn with a steady curved line. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, the condition is excellent, and the rug leaves us with a certificate of authenticity. At this scale it sits squarely in the 10x14 Persian rug class, wide enough to carry a full seating group or a long dining table with the chairs pulled back.

Design and Motifs

A lobed central medallion anchors the field, built around an 8 petal rosette with a small rose center and ringed by tiers of pale blue and navy petals. Out of that core run thin camel vines carrying palmettes, curled saz leaves and tiny star flowers, and the medallion finishes at 4 points with navy cresting and pendant finials above and below. The open ground between the medallion and the corners is left deliberately quiet, which is a Kashan habit: it gives the eye somewhere to rest and makes the drawing read as drawing rather than as clutter. The corner spandrels and the wide field beyond them are filled with an all-over vine scroll of boteh, blossoming palmettes, feathered leaves and rosettes, all of it mirrored top to bottom and side to side. There is no heavy formal border framing the field in the usual way; the composition runs to a scrolling floral edge, which is why the rug reads lighter and more open than a standard Kashan of this size.

Light Green, Blue and Brown

The ground is a soft light green, a pale celadon that shifts toward grey under low light and toward sage under daylight, and the wool has enough luster that the field changes tone as you walk around it. Against that ground the palette is cool and layered: dark navy for the medallion cresting, the boteh interiors and the small palmettes, a lighter sky blue for the feathered leaves and secondary blossoms, and ivory to cream for the outlining and the larger cloud-like leaf forms. Warmth comes from the vine work, drawn in camel and a soft cinnamon brown that traces every stem across the field, with small hits of rust, old rose and pale gold in the flower heads and a touch of olive in a few leaves. Nothing shouts. The result is a rug that behaves like a neutral in a room while still carrying real color up close, and it sits comfortably with grey, cream, walnut and pale blue furnishings rather than demanding a red-based scheme.

Kashan: The Town and the Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its weaving pedigree runs back to the Safavid court workshops. The town is known for soft, lustrous local wool and for a house formula of lobed medallion, floral spandrels and a disciplined curved line, and it is the design most Americans have seen without knowing the name: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This piece is town workshop work rather than village weaving, which shows in the tight, regular knotting visible on the back, in the even 3/8" clip that keeps the fine vine work legible, and in the signed cartouche, since a workshop only puts its name on a rug it is willing to be judged by. Across 10'8" x 13'9" the drawing never drifts, the mirrored halves line up, and the medallion sits true to center, which is the real test of a large Kashan.