11'6" x 16'5" Persian Kerman Rug | Red Open Field, Navy Floral Medallion | 1960s Oversize

A 1960s Persian Kerman at 11'6" x 16'5" is a proper room filler, close to 190 square feet of hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation, and it was drawn as a single composition rather than a repeating pattern stretched to fit. The weaver left most of the field open in clear tomato red so the eye lands on one place, the navy and ivory medallion at the center, then travels out to a wide garland border that is packed with roses, bluebells and curling leafwork. Pieces this wide are hard to find in good order, and among oversize Persian rugs the Kerman is the one that reads formal without turning heavy. The pile still stands up, the ends and sides are sound, and it ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a lobed medallion on a navy ground, built up in layers: a pink cartouche at the heart carrying an 8 petal rosette in gold and rose, 4 ivory lozenges set at the compass points, and around them a dense swirl of small blue and pink blossoms tied together by feathery ivory acanthus. Slender finials run off the top and bottom of the medallion into the open field. The field itself is deliberately bare, which is a Kerman decision and the reason the drawing reads so cleanly, while the surrounding frame of floral clusters is cut into deep scallops so the red pushes into the border and the border pushes back. The main border alternates navy panels heavy with rose bouquets against red panels of lighter sprays, with small pink and ivory shield medallions marking the 4 corners. Look closely at the border in the detail shots and you can see full blown cabbage roses, hyacinth spikes and forget-me-nots drawn with soft, rounded outlines rather than the angular shorthand of village weaving.

A Study in Red, Navy and Ivory

The field is a warm true red, closer to tomato than to burgundy, and because it covers so much uninterrupted ground it sets the temperature of the whole room. Against it sits a deep indigo navy that appears only in the medallion ground and in the border panels, which is what gives the rug its contrast and stops the red from flattening out. Ivory and pale cream carry the leafwork and the outlines, functioning as the mortar between the two strong colors. The flowers bring in the rest: dusty rose and hot pink in the rosettes, sky blue and cornflower in the small blossoms, mossy green in the leaves and calyxes, and a few notes of ochre gold at the very center. Under natural light the wool has a soft sheen that shifts the red lighter or deeper depending on where you stand, which is normal for a good Kerman fleece and part of why these rugs age well. The palette is warm enough for cream walls and wood floors and strong enough to hold its own against dark furniture.

Kerman: Southeast Persia and the Art of the Drawn Line

Kerman sits in the southeast of Persia, a high desert city with a weaving tradition that goes back to the Safavid era and a reputation built on drawing rather than on knot count alone. Kerman workshops worked from full-scale cartoons prepared by professional designers, which is why the curved lines here stay true across 16 feet and why the medallion is perfectly symmetrical on both axes. The pictorial garden border, the open field and the rose garland are the house signatures of the city, and this piece uses all 3. The wool is local, soft and slightly lustrous, spun fine enough to render a rose petal in 3 tones. Judging by the weave, the cotton foundation, the colors and the way the pile has worn evenly, this is a 1960s workshop piece from the period when Kerman was producing large formal room sizes for export; if you want to understand how those clues are read, our guide on how to date an Oriental rug walks through the same method. Sixty years on, it is still flat, still supple, and still doing exactly what it was drawn to do.