6'5" x 10'4" Persian Ardakan Rug | Ivory Floral Medallion Field | Signed Border Cartouche

This 6'5" x 10'4" Persian Ardakan rug is a town workshop piece drawn in the classic central Persian manner: an ivory ground packed edge to edge with curling vine, a pale blue lobed medallion at the center, and a woven cartouche set into the main border that marks the weaver's hand. The pile is fine wool on a cotton foundation, clipped low so the drawing stays crisp, and the back photograph shows the knot nodes running tight and even across the width. It sits comfortably in the 7 x 10 Persian rug range, which suits a sofa group or a smaller dining table with chairs pulled clear. The condition is excellent, with full pile, straight sides and original fringe, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a pale blue lobed medallion with a small rosette core, ringed by paired serrated leaves and finished top and bottom with slender pendants that reach into the field. Around it the ivory ground never sits empty: split arabesques, 8 petal rosettes, shaded palmettes and tiny buds ride a continuous vine that curves rather than turns corners, the hallmark of a drawn cartoon rather than a village improvisation. The 4 field corners carry quarter spandrels in olive and soft blue that echo the medallion instead of repeating it exactly. The main border runs a chain of blue palmettes and cupped flowers on ivory, framed by narrow guard stripes of running vine, and one border compartment breaks the rhythm to hold the woven signature cartouche shown in the close-up photograph.

Color Palette

The field reads as a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than white, and it gives the blues room to work. There are 3 distinct blues in play: a pale sky blue that fills the medallion and a few of the larger palmettes, a mid sapphire that carries most of the flower heads, and a deep navy used for outlines, stems and the darkest rosettes, which is what gives the pattern its readable structure from across a room. Olive and moss green appear in the leafwork and in the corner spandrels, warming the scheme where an all blue palette would go cold. Scattered through the field are small hits of rose pink at the flower centers and rust red in the buds and in the border cartouches, no more than a few percent of the surface but enough to catch light. The ivory guard stripes and pale outer border keep the edges light so the rug does not shrink the floor visually.

Ardakan Weaving

Ardakan is a desert town in Yazd province, central Persia, and its weavers work squarely in the Kashan weaving tradition, using the same cartoon based floral medallion layout, the same low even clip and the same cotton warp and weft construction. What separates a good Ardakan from a plain one is knot density and the discipline of the curved line, and this piece has both: the vine holds its arc through every turn, the small rosettes stay round rather than flattening into blocks, and the two halves of the field mirror each other cleanly along the long axis. The woven cartouche in the border tells you this came off a named loom rather than an anonymous production run, and the wool has the slight sheen that low clipped fine wool develops as it is walked on.