13' x 21' Persian Kerman Rug | Open Red Field & Navy Floral Medallion | Vintage 1980s Oversize

Very few Persian rugs are woven at 13' x 21', and fewer still are drawn with the confidence to leave the field almost bare. This 1980s Kerman does exactly that: a deep rose red ground, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation, carrying a single navy medallion at the center and a wide garden border at the edge, with 273 square feet of quiet colour in between. It is a room-defining piece for a grand salon, a long formal dining room or an estate library, and it sits comfortably among true oversize Persian rugs that ship free anywhere in the 50 states despite their weight. The pile is even and full end to end, the fringes are original, and the rug ships with a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials and construction.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Kerman open field: a lobed navy medallion sits dead center, filled with pink cabbage roses, turquoise blossoms and a small ivory cartouche at its heart, with stepped pendants running north and south along the long axis. Sprays of rose and cornflower drift out from the medallion onto the plain ground, restrained enough that the red never loses its calm. All 4 corners carry large sky blue spandrels packed with vases, palmettes and curling acanthus leaves, and the main border is the Kerman garden band at full strength: a navy ground crowded with roses, iris, leafy vases and scrolling vine, framed by ivory and gold guard stripes. The drawing is entirely curvilinear, with rounded floral heads and flowing stems, the mark of a workshop cartoon rather than village improvisation.

A Rose Red Ground Against Sky Blue, Cream and Navy

The field is a warm rose red, closer to cherry than to brick, and it shifts noticeably with the light as the wool lies one way or the other. Against it the palette is deliberately cool: inky navy in the medallion and main border, a soft sky blue running through the spandrels and secondary bands, and broad passages of cream and pale gold that keep the border from reading heavy. The flowers supply the rest, rose pink and salmon in the cabbage roses, sage and olive green in the leaves, mustard gold in the outlines and small touches of black defining the stems. Those blacks and the deep navy give the design its backbone, while the cream ties the border into the ivory fringe at both ends. The result is a red rug that behaves gently in a room, warm underfoot but never loud.

Kerman: Southeast Persia's Floral Workshop Tradition

Kerman lies in the high desert of southeast Persia and has woven for the export and palace trade longer than almost any other Persian city, building its name on pictorial garden borders and floral medallions rather than geometry. Weavers there work on cotton warps with a soft, long-stapled local wool that takes dye beautifully, which is why Kerman reds and blues age into the mellow tones seen here rather than going flat. A piece at 13' x 21' had to be woven on a purpose-built loom by a team working from a master cartoon, matching the border repeat around all 4 sides over months of work, and the back photo shows an even, regular knot line with no drift in the pattern. That discipline, plus wool that still has body after 40 years of use, is what separates a genuine workshop Kerman from the commercial copies that borrow its drawing.