10' x 13'3" Persian Kerman Rug | Burgundy Open Field, Oval Navy Medallion | 1980s, Excellent Condition

This Kerman was knotted in the 1980s and has come through four decades with its wool still heavy and lustrous underfoot. The drawing follows the classic Kerman formula and does it with restraint: a deep burgundy field left almost entirely empty, a single ivory and navy oval medallion floating at the center with a pendant above and below, and a wide navy floral border carried on antique ivory ground. At 10 feet by just over 13 feet it covers a full seating group without the pattern fighting the furniture, and anyone comparing 10x13 Persian rugs will notice how much calmer an open-field Kerman reads than a busy all-over design. It ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming it as a hand-knotted Persian rug.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an oval cartouche of pale gold filled with small roses, a single blue rosette at its heart and fine rust vine tracing the ground. Around it runs a navy ring packed with acanthus scrolls, curling blue leaves and red buds, then an ivory outline that reads almost like a crown. A matching pendant finial sits at each end of the medallion, and beyond those a pair of smaller floral bouquets anchors the long axis. The field itself is open burgundy, which is the whole point of this drawing: it gives the eye somewhere to rest and lets the medallion carry the composition. A scalloped ivory and gold line sweeps around the field in a broad oval, setting up the border system. The main border is navy, drawn with rosettes, palmettes and five-petal blossoms linked by a continuous gold vine, flanked inside and out by narrower gold scroll stripes. The outer border returns to burgundy with ivory and rose flowers, and the 4 corners finish with dense floral spandrels that follow the curve rather than breaking it.

The Burgundy, Navy and Antique Gold Palette

The field is a true burgundy, closer to wine and cranberry than to a bright tomato red, and it shifts a shade or two across the width the way hand-dyed wool should. Against it the border ground is a deep inky navy, so dark in the close-up frames that it almost reads black until the light hits it. The drawing sits on those two grounds in antique gold and soft ivory, warm rather than stark white, with a greenish cast to the gold in the inner guard stripe. Inside the flowers the weavers used a whole second palette at small scale: powder blue and teal petals, pine green leaves, rose pink buds and the occasional flash of rust orange. That mix of soft blue and green on a wine ground is what keeps the rug from feeling heavy, and it makes this piece easy to live with next to navy upholstery, cherry or walnut wood and warm plaster walls. If this palette is what you are shopping for, our wider range of red and burgundy Persian rugs is worth a look.

Kerman: The Floral Workshops of Southeast Persia

Kerman sits in the southeast of Persia, on the edge of the desert, and it has been a city of professional weavers for centuries rather than a village tradition. Kerman is best known for its pictorial garden borders and its curvilinear floral drawing, and both of those depend on the same thing: a weaver who can hold a true curved line over several feet of warp. You can see it here in the unbroken oval sweep around the field and in the way the border vine meets itself at the corners without a stumble. The piece is knotted in wool pile on a cotton foundation, with a medium-depth, tightly packed nap that the back photograph shows clearly, and the fringe and both selvedges are sound. Kerman wool takes dye beautifully and wears slowly, which is why rugs from this city from the 1980s still turn up looking like this one rather than looking tired. For a 13 foot formal room, that combination of a disciplined drawing and durable local wool is exactly the argument for buying Kerman.