6'7" x 10'1" Persian Kashan Rug | Ivory | Signed

A hand-knotted rug from Persia measuring 6'7" x 10'1", worked in the Kashan manner on an ivory ground. From across a room it reads as a pale, evenly lit rectangular carpet with a soft taupe medallion at the centre and a taupe border of the same weight, the drawing fine enough that the colour only resolves into flowers when you stand over it. A small woven cartouche carrying a signature sits in the upper end border. The condition is given as excellent.

Design

The field is covered with scrolling vine, palmettes and small many-petalled blossoms, drawn loosely enough that no two quarters repeat exactly. At the centre is a lobed medallion in taupe outlined in dark indigo, filled with its own smaller rosette and vine and finished top and bottom with narrow pendant finials that run well out into the field. Matching quarter-medallions fill the four corners, leaving an open ivory panel along each long side. The main border is a taupe band of alternating palmettes and vine-linked flowerheads, held between several narrow guard stripes, including a reciprocal ivory meander at the outer edge. The signature cartouche breaks the border rhythm at the centre of one end, lettered in dark navy on ivory (images 3 and 5).

Colour

The ground is a warm ivory with a faint cream cast rather than a bleached white, and the medallion and borders sit a shade or two deeper in greige and soft taupe, so the structure shows as tone rather than contrast. Against that neutral base the drawing is picked out in dark indigo outlines, powder blue, a dull wine rose, ochre gold, a muted sage and small touches of brown and rust. Each accent colour is used in very small quantities, a petal or a leaf tip at a time, which keeps the overall impression light while the detail stays legible from close up.

Making

Hand-knotted in Persia in the Kashan design, with a short, closely clipped pile and a tightly packed back, visible in image 5 where a ruler is laid across the surface. The pile is cut low enough that the fine outlining survives at the level of a single knot, and the sides and fringed ends are intact in the photographs. The spec table records no material and no age, so neither is stated here. It joins the hand-knotted stock as a signed piece in excellent condition.