4'4" x 7' Persian Kashan Rug | Berry Red Field, Indigo Lobed Medallion | Fine Wool Pile, Excellent Condition

This is a classic town piece in the size most buyers actually need: 4'4" x 7', small enough to sit under a coffee table or beside a bed, drawn with the full formal vocabulary of Persian Kashan rugs. The berry red field carries a blue and ivory lobed medallion, the main border runs dark indigo, and the 3/8" wool pile is still full and even from end to end, with the original flat-woven ends and ivory cotton fringe intact. Hand-knotted on a cotton foundation, it handles with the firm, slightly waxy feel that good Kashan wool keeps for decades. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a lobed medallion in indigo and mid blue, outlined in ivory and closed at top and bottom by two pendant finials that point along the length of the rug. Inside it sits an 8 petal rosette on a gold ground, ringed by curling leaves and small palmettes. Around the medallion the field fills with a dense but orderly floral vine: rosettes, split palmettes, serrated leaves and small bud clusters, all drawn on curved lines rather than the angular village shorthand. Four corner spandrels in deep indigo repeat the same flowers in reverse, so the field reads as one continuous garden interrupted only by the medallion. The main border carries alternating large palmettes and cypress-like leaf sprays on indigo, flanked by narrow ivory guard bands of linked rosettes, and the outer stripe returns to red to tie the border back to the field.

Colors in This Rug

The dominant tone is a berry red, deeper and cooler than a tomato red, with the faint tonal movement through the field that comes from hand-dyed wool. Against it the dark indigo of the border and spandrels reads almost black in low light and opens to a true navy under a lamp. The medallion introduces a second, lighter blue, a soft sky tone that gives the center its lift. Ivory does the drawing work throughout: every vine, outline and guard band is picked out in cream, which is what keeps such a busy field legible. Scattered through the flowers are rose pink, apricot, saffron gold, sage and a bottle green in the leaves, each used in small quantities so the rug stays red and blue overall. The close-up photographs show the color at its truest.

Kashan Origin and Weaving Quality

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that set the standard for the formal medallion carpet. Local wool is soft and lustrous, and the town formula, a red field with a navy lobed medallion and floral spandrels, has been the most copied design in the rug world for a century. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This example is town work rather than village work: the knotting is fine enough to hold curved vine and the tiny ivory outlines without breaking them into steps, the back is tight and regular, and the selvages and ends are original and sound. At 4'4" x 7' it is a genuinely usable piece of that tradition rather than a fragment of it.