13' x 19'6" Persian Kashan Rug | Sheikh Safi Design | Ivory Field | Never Used

This is a full palace piece: 13' x 19'6" of hand-knotted wool in the Sheikh Safi design, woven in the 2000's and never laid in a home. The light beige field runs unbroken from end to end, the pile is still full and even across all 234 inches of length, and the ivory cotton fringe has never been walked on. Pieces of this scale are rarely woven on speculation, which is part of why good Persian Kashan rugs in true palace dimensions have become so hard to source. It belongs in the small group of genuine oversize Persian rugs that can fill a great room without a single seam or join. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials and construction.

Design and Motifs

The Sheikh Safi pattern descends from the famous pair woven for the shrine of Sheikh Safi al-Din at Ardabil, and this weaver has kept the essential architecture intact. A 16 point stellate medallion sits dead center on a navy ground, its core a pale green rosette ringed by brown and ivory petals. Above and below it hang the two pendant lamp motifs that identify the design, suspended on slender stems. Radiating out from the medallion is a continuous field of palmettes, curled saz leaves, rosebuds and fine arabesque vine scroll, drawn with the curved line that only a workshop cartoon allows. The 4 corner spandrels repeat the medallion coloring in miniature, and the main border carries large paisley palmettes and cusped floral cartouches between 4 narrow guard stripes. Look at the close detail photographs and you can see individual flower heads no wider than a fingertip rendered in 5 or 6 separate colors.

A Light Beige, Green and Blue Palette

The field is a warm light beige, closer to sand than to stark ivory, and it reads as a quiet backdrop rather than a color of its own. Against it the main border shifts to a soft sage and olive green, an unusual and expensive choice that gives the whole piece a muted, slightly aged look even though it has never been used. The medallion ground is deep navy blue, with the surrounding medallion halo in a dusty mushroom brown. The drawing itself is where the color lives: rose pink, brick red, mustard gold, sky blue, cream and leaf green appear in the palmettes and rosettes, each outlined in dark indigo so the motifs stay crisp against the pale ground. Guard stripes in ivory and pale blue separate the field from the border and keep the transition clean. Under lamplight the wool takes a low sheen and the greens warm noticeably.

Kashan Weaving and Quality

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its workshops have been weaving to court standards since the Safavid period. The town is known for soft, lustrous local wool and for the classical medallion formula, and it is the single most recognizable Persian city weave in America: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. On a rug this size the quality question is really a question of discipline, because a 19'6" warp has to hold true for years on the loom without the medallion drifting off axis or the borders wandering. Turn this one over, as in the reverse photographs, and the knot rows are straight and tightly packed on a cotton foundation, with the design reading almost as clearly from the back as from the front. The wool pile is dense enough to take heavy furniture, and after more than 20 years rolled in storage it is still structurally as new.