10' x 14' Persian Kashan Rug | Red Floral Medallion | Signed Cartouche, 2000s

This 10' x 14' Kashan was woven in central Persia in the 2000's, hand-knotted on a cotton foundation with a natural wool pile that still stands full and upright across the whole field. The weaver closed the work with a small green cartouche in one end border, the mark a workshop adds when it expects the piece to be kept rather than traded on. Nothing about it has been walked down: the selvedges are tight, the fringe is intact and the back is clean and firm, as the final photographs show. It arrives with our certificate of authenticity, and at 10 feet by 14 feet it sits in the format most buyers searching 10x14 Persian rugs are actually trying to fill, a full room with furniture standing on the wool rather than around it.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the classic formula of Persian Kashan rugs, executed here with real patience. A navy lobed medallion sits dead center, outlined in ivory, with an ivory inner cartouche holding a stepped blue panel and an 8 petal rosette at its heart. Slender pendants reach out top and bottom into the field. Around it the red ground is covered edge to edge with an all-over system of palmettes, serrated leaves, rosettes, tulip sprays and curling boteh, all carried on thin scrolling vines that branch and rejoin without ever colliding. Large ivory spandrels fill the 4 corners with their own floral drawing, which gives the field its oval shape. The border scheme runs to several bands: a wide navy main border of red palmettes and pink blossoms, flanked by sky blue guard stripes of blue rosettes and ivory vine, then a narrow outer reciprocal band. Both ends of the field repeat precisely, the sign of a drawn cartoon followed line by line.

A Deep Red Field With Navy, Sky Blue and Ivory

The ground is a deep true red that leans very slightly to rose where the light catches the pile, the shade that makes red and burgundy Persian rugs read warm rather than loud. Against it the medallion and main border are a dark inky navy, and between the two sits a bright sky blue in the guard borders and in hundreds of small blossoms, which is what keeps the whole surface lively instead of heavy. Ivory does the structural work: it outlines the medallion, fills the 4 corner spandrels and picks out every vine, so the pattern stays legible from standing height. Scattered through the floral heads are olive and moss green leaves, soft pink and salmon petals, saffron yellow, a clear orange and small notes of walnut brown. All of it appears to be natural dye work, and the close photographs show the gentle tonal movement across the red that only hand-dyed wool gives.

Kashan: Central Persia and Its Weaving Standard

Kashan lies in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that first set the medallion and spandrel layout the rest of the world later copied. The town's reputation rests on two things: soft, lustrous local wool that takes dye beautifully and holds a sheen for decades, and a disciplined workshop weave fine enough to carry curved vine work at this scale. That combination is why a Kashan is the Persian rug most people have seen without knowing its name. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This example shows the standard clearly in the back of the rug, with small, regular, even knots, straight rows, no slack or buckling, and corners that resolve cleanly where the borders turn.