10' x 13'4" Persian Kashan Rug | All Over Floral Ivory Field | Signed Cartouche

This 10' x 13'4" piece is a signed workshop weaving from central Persia, hand-knotted on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" wool pile that still stands full and even from selvage to selvage. What separates it from most Persian Kashan rugs of this size is the layout: instead of one large lobed medallion sitting alone on an open field, the weaver filled the entire ground with a continuous floral lattice and set only a small rosette at the center, so the drawing stays interesting wherever a sofa or table happens to land. A woven cartouche in the upper border carries the weaver's name, the mark of someone confident enough to sign the work. The rug is in excellent condition and ships with a certificate of authenticity. Within 10x13 Persian rugs, this is the proportion that finally covers a full room with all four legs of the furniture on the wool.

Design and Motifs

The field is a classic all over floral design, built from curving vines that carry serrated saz leaves, split palmettes, 8 petal rosettes and small cypress-like sprays. Every element is mirrored across both the long and short axes, which is the discipline that separates a drawn cartoon from a copied one: follow any vine and it resolves cleanly at the opposite end. At the exact center sits a compact rosette, a bright disc ringed by a scalloped halo, small enough that it reads as a focal point rather than a medallion. The main border runs a repeating sequence of palmettes and rosettes joined by a thin vine, framed on each side by narrow floral guard stripes and a fine reciprocal outer band, 5 bands in total on each edge. The corners are resolved properly, with the border pattern turning rather than being cut off, another sign of a workshop cartoon rather than village improvisation.

A Soft Ivory Field With Cool Green Undertones

The ground is an ivory that leans cool, picking up a faint sage green-grey cast depending on how the light falls, which gives the rug a quieter, more contemporary presence than the usual red-field Kashan. Against that ground the drawing is carried in deep navy blue, which outlines most of the palmettes and vine work and gives the pattern its structure. Between the navy lines sit pale sky blue petals, warm gold and saffron blossom centers, and small hits of rust and terracotta that keep the whole field from reading cold. Soft sage green appears in the leaves, and tiny points of true red punctuate the flower hearts, visible in the close-up but invisible from standing height. The main border shifts to a deeper taupe-green ground with the same navy, gold and rust palette, and the outermost guard band returns to clean ivory, so the rug frames itself neatly against a light or dark floor.

Kashan: Central Persia's Court Weaving City

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its weaving lineage runs straight back to the Safavid court workshops. The city's advantage has always been twofold: local wool that is unusually soft and lustrous, and a workshop system in which a designer draws the cartoon and trained weavers follow it knot for knot. That is why a Kashan of this quality holds its symmetry across more than 13 feet of length. The back, seen against a ruler, shows a tight, regular knot with clearly defined rows and no pulling, which is what allows drawing this fine to hold together at room size. Kashan is also the pattern most people already recognize without knowing its name: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This one is the more collectible version of that look, signed, all over rather than medallion, and woven in a palette you rarely see leave the workshop.