10' x 13' Persian Kerman Rug | Red Open Field with Ivory Medallion | 1980's, Excellent Condition

This is the classic Kerman formula handled with restraint: a broad tomato red field left almost entirely open, a single ivory and navy medallion floating at the center, and all of the drawing pushed out to the corners and the border. Woven in the 1980's in southeast Persia, it is hand-knotted in 100% wool on a cotton foundation, with a level pile, straight sides and clean ivory fringes on both ends. At 10' x 13' it covers a full formal room and still leaves the field readable from every seat, which is exactly what this open-ground layout is designed for. Condition is excellent with no repairs or wear visible in the photographs, and the rug ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The center medallion is an elongated eight-lobed form drawn on a midnight ground, filled with a small ivory rosette at its heart and radiating layers of feathered leaves, tiny buds and gold-tipped palmettes. Two pendant finials extend above and below it, each one a bouquet of roses and serrated leaves rather than a plain cartouche. The surrounding field is deliberately bare, so the eye travels straight from the medallion to the four corner spandrels, where dense clusters of roses, carnations and curling acanthus leaves press inward against the open red. The wide main border is the piece that gives this rug its weight: a navy ground carrying large scrolling leaf cartouches, each cradling a rose spray, joined by a continuous vine of small blossoms. Narrow red guard borders with delicate flowering vines frame it on both sides. That pictorial, garden-like border treatment is the drawing tradition Kerman is known for, and here it is executed with clear outlines and no crowding, which is what keeps a large-format layout like this one legible.

Color Palette

The field is a warm tomato red, clear and even from end to end, with the slight abrash you expect from wool dyed in batches. Against it, the border ground is a true midnight navy, almost black in shadow, which throws the flowers forward the way a dark mat throws a print forward. Inside the medallion and the spandrels the palette opens right up: ivory and soft cream carry most of the outlining, sage and olive green fill the leaves, and the flowers run from coral and rose pink through pale sky blue, buttercup gold and a deep plum. Small touches of light blue scatter through the corners and the border vine, which is a Kerman signature and the detail that keeps the red from ever looking heavy. The overall reading is red and navy at a distance, then a full garden of color as you approach.

Kerman Weaving in Southeast Persia

Kerman sits in the southeast of Persia, a desert city with a long workshop tradition built on curvilinear drawing and locally spun wool that takes dye beautifully and stays soft underfoot. Kerman weavers work from a full cartoon rather than a memorized village pattern, which is why the curves here stay true and the four corners resolve symmetrically at this scale. The asymmetric knot on a cotton warp and weft gives the rug a supple handle and a flat, even lie, and the wool has kept its luster after four decades. Room-size Kerman weaving of this period was made for formal interiors, and among 10x13 Persian rugs an open-field layout like this is the one that reads best under a full dining table or a large seating group, since the pattern lives at the edges where furniture will not hide it.