10' x 13' Persian Kashan Rug | Signed Red Medallion with Ivory Border | Excellent Condition

This is a signed persian kashan rug in the full 10' x 13' room size, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and finished with a small woven cartouche set into the ivory border. The weaver signed the piece the way a workshop signs finished work, which tells you this was not an anonymous commercial run. The pile still stands full and even across the whole field, the ends and sides are intact, and the colors have the depth of naturally aged wool rather than anything washed down. It arrives with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction. Among 10x13 Persian rugs, a signed example in this condition is the kind of piece that gets kept rather than traded.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the classic Kashan formula: one lobed navy medallion at dead center, a red cusped core inside it filled with curling split leaves and small rosettes, a pendant at each end, and matching cornerpieces that anchor the 4 corners of the field. Around that framework the field is packed edge to edge with an all-over floral repeat, curved vinework carrying palmettes, serrated leaves, buds and small blossoms that mirror top to bottom and left to right. Nothing is left blank, and the curvilinear line holds its shape even through the tightest scrolls, which is the real test of a workshop cartoon. The main border runs a rhythm of large boteh and palmette forms on a navy ground, separated by twin ivory guard stripes that carry a running vine of tiny flowerheads, and the outermost minor border repeats a small rosette chain that frames the whole piece cleanly.

A Deep Red Field with Navy, Ivory and Green Accents

The field reads as a deep true red, warm and slightly raspberry in raking light rather than orange, and it stays consistent from border to border with only the gentle tonal movement that hand-dyed wool always shows. Against it the medallion, cornerpieces and main border sit in a dark navy blue that goes almost black in the shaded photographs and opens up to indigo under direct light. Ivory does the structural work here, outlining the medallion, drawing the guard stripes and picking out individual leaf edges so the pattern stays legible from across a room. Inside the florals the palette widens: rose and soft pink blossoms, mid sky blue petals, olive and true green leaves, and small touches of gold, rust and brown on the palmette heads. Green appears as accent work rather than mass, which keeps the red and navy contrast dominant.

Kashan Weaving and Workshop Quality

Kashan sits in central Persia north of Isfahan and has been a weaving town since the Safavid court workshops, which is why its rugs still follow a formal, drawn-on-paper discipline instead of village improvisation. The local wool is soft and lustrous and takes red dye particularly well, and that combination of fine wool plus a cotton warp and weft is what lets a Kashan hold a curved line at this scale. If you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor, which is how familiar this look has become in American rooms. The back of this piece shows an even, tightly packed knot field with clean color separation node to node, and the signature cartouche places it with a named workshop rather than an open-market weave. It sits comfortably alongside the rest of our Kashan rugs.