10' x 14' Persian Kashan Rug | Red Floral Medallion Field | Signed Cartouche, Perfect Condition

A signed workshop piece in a true room size, this rug fills a formal space the way the weaver intended, with the medallion landing centrally under a seating group or a long dining table. The pile is fine wool on a cotton foundation, dense enough to hold the drawing crisply and still soft underfoot, and the weaver placed his cartouche in the upper border rather than the lower one, which is the mark of a shop that expected the rug to be read as well as walked on. If you are shopping 10 x 14 Persian rugs, this is the classical end of the category, and it belongs in the same conversation as the best Persian Kashan rugs we handle. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the textbook Kashan formula, executed with more drawing than most examples carry. A navy lobed medallion sits dead center, built from concentric rings of rosettes and a small 8 petal star at its heart, with a pendant finial reaching top and bottom into the field. Around it the red ground is covered edge to edge with scrolling vines, palmettes, curled saz leaves and small ivory blossoms, all mirrored across both axes so the rug reads the same from either end. The 4 corners carry deep navy spandrels outlined in ivory, which frames the medallion and keeps the field from feeling busy. The main border is a navy band of alternating palmettes and cartouche shaped florals, flanked by narrow rosette guard stripes in ivory and blue, and the border corners turn cleanly, a detail that separates workshop weaving from village work.

Color Palette

The field is a deep red with raspberry lights, a cool cochineal-leaning red rather than a brick or rust tone, and it shifts noticeably with the nap so one end of the rug reads darker than the other. Against it the medallion, spandrels and main border are a near black midnight navy, the strongest contrast in the rug. The secondary palette does the real work: soft ivory and cream in the guard stripes and blossom petals, a mid sky blue in the smaller flowers and the inner medallion ring, rose pink through the border palmettes, muted gold and olive in the vine leaves, and small touches of sage green and terracotta brown scattered through the field. The signature cartouche adds a short flash of green with red and ivory script. Under lamplight the red warms and the navy softens toward indigo, while daylight pulls the blues and the ivory forward.

Kashan Origin and Weaving Quality

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its weaving goes back to the Safavid court workshops, which is why the city keeps returning to the same disciplined vocabulary of red field, navy lobed medallion and ivory spandrels. The local wool is soft and lustrous, and Kashan weavers spin it fine, so a good Kashan carries curved line and floral detail that coarser weaves cannot hold at this scale. This is also the single most recognizable Persian design in America: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. On the back of this piece the knotting is even and tight across the full 10' x 14', the selvedges are firm, and the pile stands at a consistent medium height with no thinning, which is what you want to see in a rug of this age and size before it goes down in a main room.