11'1" x 18'11" Persian Kerman Rug | Faded Light Green Field with Pink Florals | 1960s Oversize

A rug of this length, 11'1" x 18'11", was woven for a single long room and nothing else, and sixty years of living have softened it into something no new rug can imitate. The field has settled into a pale, dusty green that carries a faint horizontal abrash, and against it the pink and ivory drawing floats like watercolor. The pile is low and even, the handle is supple, and the sides and ends are sound, so this piece lies perfectly flat under heavy furniture. Anyone shopping oversize Persian rugs knows how rarely a genuine 1960s Kerman of this scale surfaces in a pastel palette. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The composition is classic Kerman drawing: a lobed central medallion on an ivory ground, anchored by an 8 point star rosette in blue, with a pair of slender pendants reaching along the long axis toward each end. Around the medallion the weaver scattered naturalistic bouquets, roses, carnations and small blossoms on thin curling stems, drawn with the botanical realism that separates Kerman from the stylized palmette work of other workshops. The field itself is left largely open, which is a confident choice at this length and gives the eye somewhere to rest. Deep floral spandrels fill all 4 corners and spill inward with sprays of pink and rose. The main border is a broad ivory band of flowering vine, carrying blue cartouche-like devices at the midpoints of each side, and it is framed by narrow guard stripes of trailing blossom that run unbroken around the entire perimeter.

A Faded Light Green Field with Pink, Ivory and Blue

The field is the reason to buy this rug. It sits between celadon and sage, a chalky light green that lightens toward the center and picks up faint silvery striations where the wool takes light differently across the width. Set on that ground, the pinks do most of the work: hot rose in the medallion and border flowers, dusty antique pink in the spandrels, and pale blush in the smaller blossoms, with a few deeper raspberry accents left in the protected areas near the selvedges. Ivory carries the medallion core and the wide outer border, while blue appears in measured doses, a teal blue star at the very center, cornflower blue leaf forms in the corners, and slate blue outlining through the guard stripes. Soft olive and cinnamon brown stems tie the palette together. Buyers hunting green Persian rugs at this scale will find that this one reads as a neutral in most rooms and turns unmistakably green in daylight.

Kerman Weaving in Southeast Persia

Kerman lies on the high desert plateau of southeast Persia and has been a weaving center since the Safavid period, known above all for its painterly floral drawing and its enormous dye palette. The city's workshops wove on a cotton foundation with a fine asymmetrical knot, which is what allows the curved stems and rounded rose petals seen here to be drawn without the angularity of village work. Pieces from the 1960s, like this one, are the last generation woven with the old spinning and dyeing practices before production shifted, and the way the colors have mellowed rather than gone flat is one of the clearest indicators when you date an oriental rug by eye. Among Persian Kerman rugs, an intact oversize floor piece with this much surviving drawing and a stable, low, evenly worn pile is the kind of thing that turns up once and then is gone.