10' x 15' Persian Kashan Rug | Wool | Ivory, Green and Blue

A 10' x 15' carpet knotted in Persia, wool throughout, with a pile clipped to 3/8". The field is a pale green that shifts toward ivory-grey in raking light, covered edge to edge with blue and ivory vinework, and the wide border repeats the same drawing on a slightly deeper green ground. Near one end of the border a small cartouche carries a woven inscription in Persian script, visible in the close photograph.

Design

The Kashan drawing here is an allover one rather than a medallion layout: a single rosette sits at the centre of the field, and from it the pattern opens outward in mirrored pairs of curling serrated leaves, split palmettes, tulip-like blooms and small eight-petalled rosettes, all carried on a fine stem system that reaches the border on every side. The main border runs a scrolling vine with alternating palmettes and cupped blossoms, set between narrow guard stripes of reciprocal meander and a very fine ivory chain of single flowerheads at the outer edge. In the rectangular format the repeat has room to state itself two or three times along the length without crowding.

Colour

The ground is a light green, closer to celadon than to olive, and it keeps the whole carpet quiet. Against it the drawing is worked in blue at three strengths: a near-black indigo for outlines and leaf spines, a mid cornflower for the larger leaves, and a chalky sky blue for the petals. Ivory picks out stems and small flowers and lifts the whole field, while saffron yellow, rust and the occasional point of brick red appear in the palmette centres and along the border stripes, small enough to read as sparks rather than as a fourth colour.

Making

Hand-knotted in wool on a wool foundation, with a 3/8" pile that sits low enough to hold the fine outlines of the leaves and stems, as the back-of-the-hand photograph with the rule against it shows. It comes from Persia and carries the Kashan design, and the inscribed cartouche in the border is part of that tradition of hand-knotted work being signed at the loom. The wool is in excellent condition, with even pile across the field and the flatweave ends and fringes intact.