13' x 25' Persian Kerman Rug | Raspberry Red Field with Ivory Floral Border | Palace Size

This is a true palace piece: 13 feet wide and 25 feet long, 325 square feet of hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation, woven in one continuous run with no seams and no joins. The 3/8 inch pile still stands full and even from end to end, and the cotton warps come off the ends as clean white fringe on both sides. A rug of this footprint is not something a weaver improvises, since the medallion, the scalloped field edge and the four corner spandrels all had to be plotted to land correctly across a loom this wide. It belongs in the small group of oversize Persian rugs that can actually fill a ballroom, a long formal dining room or a double-height great room, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a handmade Persian Kerman.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the classic Kerman formula of one strong center and a great deal of quiet space around it. A pointed oval medallion sits dead center, built around a rosette core and ringed by tight concentric wreaths of small roses, carnations and leaf sprays, then finished at top and bottom with slender floral pendants that reach out into the open ground. The field itself is left almost entirely plain, which is the hardest thing to do well on a loom this wide, because any irregularity in the knotting would show immediately across 25 feet of single color. That field is closed not by a straight line but by a deeply scalloped, cloud-banded edge of ivory bouquets that rolls around all 4 sides like lace, with large palmette clusters dropping inward at the midpoints and heavy floral corner spandrels filling the 4 corners. Beyond it the main border carries a continuous procession of palmettes, curling acanthus leaves and rose sprays, flanked by narrow vine guard stripes, so the eye moves from a busy border through the scalloped transition into calm open red.

A Raspberry Red Field Framed in Ivory, Seafoam and Rose

The field reads as a deep raspberry red with a cool, slightly wine-toned cast rather than the hot brick red of village weaving, and it shifts noticeably with the nap, going lighter and almost rose where the pile lays away from you and deeper where it lays toward you. Against it the medallion is worked in pale seafoam green and ivory, with the small blossoms picked out in dusty rose, powder blue and indigo, and a few touches of soft gold in the leafwork. The spandrels and the scalloped border repeat that ivory and celadon palette, warming into sandy beige and old rose through the main border, where deeper navy outlines give the palmettes their definition. The narrow outer stripe returns to the same red as the field, which frames the whole rug and keeps the pale border from floating. Overall it is a soft, aged, slightly faded-rose color story rather than a bold one, and it sits easily with cream plaster, dark walnut, gilt and antique furniture.

Woven in Kerman, Southeast Persia

Kerman sits at the edge of the high desert in southeast Persia and has produced some of the most consistently refined floor weaving in the country for centuries, known for curvilinear drawing, botanical detail and pictorial garden borders rather than geometry. The back of this piece, shown against a ruler in the last photograph, is tight and regular, with straight rows and crisp definition on every small blossom, which is what allows a design of this scale to hold its proportion instead of drifting. The wool is local and takes dye beautifully, which is why old Persian Kerman rugs age into these soft rose and celadon tones instead of going flat. For a buyer whose real constraint is floor area rather than style, this sits at the top end of the oversize and palace size rugs we carry, and at 13' x 25' it ships free to all 50 states despite its weight.