10' x 13'4" Persian Kashan Rug | Signed Medallion Design | Excellent Unused Condition

This 10' x 13'4" piece is a signed, never used example of the classic central Persian formula, and it is the sort of rug most people picture when they think of Persian Kashan rugs: a deep red field, a dark indigo lobed medallion, ivory spandrels and a wide indigo border. The weaver signed the work in a small cartouche set into the end border, which on a Kashan almost always means a workshop loom rather than a village one. The pile is a full 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, with square, even handle and no wear anywhere on the surface. It ships with a certificate of authenticity, and at 10 feet by just over 13 feet it sits squarely in the most requested of all 10x13 Persian rugs proportions.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is a layered medallion and spandrel composition worked over a completely filled field. At the center sits a small ivory cartouche holding a sky blue rosette, ringed by red and blue petals; that core sits inside a dark indigo diamond medallion with stepped, hooked outlines and pendant finials running north and south. Around it the red ground carries an unbroken all-over lattice of palmettes, split-leaf arabesques, curling saz leaves and small 8 petal rosettes on thin ivory vine stems, drawn in the curvilinear Kashan manner rather than the angular village style. The 4 corners repeat the medallion vocabulary in ivory, which lifts the corners out of the red and gives the field its oval reading. The main border is a broad indigo band of alternating palmettes and rosettes joined by scrolling vine, flanked on both sides by light blue guard stripes of reciprocal floral meander and finally by narrow ivory and red outer bands. The signature cartouche breaks the border rhythm at one end, sitting in a green reserve.

A Deep Madder Red Read Against Dark Indigo

The field red is a saturated madder tone with a slightly cool, wine-leaning cast rather than a bright orange red, and it holds its depth right across the 13'4" length. Against it the medallion and border are dark indigo, close to navy black in the shadow of the pile and opening to a clearer blue where the light catches the wool. Between those two dominants the palette is far busier than a photograph first suggests: the guard stripes run a soft light blue, almost a faded denim, and the flowers scattered through the field pick up ivory, rose pink, sage and olive green, a warm gold, soft brown and small hits of pale turquoise. The ivory spandrels and the ivory outlining of the vine stems act as the drawing lines that keep the red and the indigo from collapsing into one another. The end finish is a clean, hand-tied ivory cotton fringe, and the outer selvage is overcast in the same red as the field.

Kashan: The Town and the Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops. The town is known for soft, lustrous local wool and for the formula this rug follows exactly: red field, navy lobed medallion, ivory spandrels. It is also the most familiar Persian rug in American rooms, the one on the floor when you watch Shark Tank. The back of this piece, shown against a ruler, reads a tight, regular knot count with clearly defined nodes and no slack rows, which is what separates a workshop Kashan from the looser commercial grades sold under the same name. Straight sides, a flat lie and a signed cartouche all point the same direction. At 3/8" the pile still has its full height, so this rug has decades of use ahead of it before the drawing ever begins to soften.