7'11" x 11'5" Persian Kashan Rug | Red Field & Navy Floral Border | Fine Wool, Excellent Condition

Measuring 7'11" x 11'5", this is the central Persian town weave that most people picture when they picture a Persian rug: a deep red field packed edge to edge with flowers, a navy lobed medallion in the middle, and a wide navy border that frames the whole thing like a picture mat. It falls neatly into the 8x11 Persian rugs format, which is the size that actually works under a full sofa group or a 6 to 8 seat dining table without crowding the walls. The pile is fine wool on a cotton foundation, clipped fairly low so the drawing stays crisp, and the condition is excellent with the handle of a rug that has been looked after rather than worked hard. Anyone shopping a Persian Kashan rug for the first time will find this a textbook example of the type. It ships with our certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials, weave and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a tiered medallion built in three layers: a navy lobed outline with hooked scrolls at the sides, an ivory inner cartouche, and at its heart a pale sky blue panel carrying an 8 petal rosette. Slender pendants rise and fall from the medallion along the long axis, each one tipped with a small palmette. All 4 corners carry matching spandrels in navy and ivory, so the field reads as a formal, perfectly symmetrical composition. Between medallion and corners the red ground is filled with an all over system of rosettes, palmettes, serrated leaves and curling vine scroll, drawn small enough that you keep finding new flowers the longer you look. The main border runs alternating palmettes and round rosettes along a continuous scrolling vine, bracketed by ivory guard stripes of linked blossoms and a fine sawtooth minor band, visible clearly in the corner close-up. The ends finish in plain white cotton fringe.

The Color Palette

The field is a warm true red with a madder depth to it, leaning slightly toward cherry in the open areas and darkening where the wool catches the light at an angle, which is the lanolin sheen you want in a good town weave. Against that, the main border and the medallion outline sit in a navy so deep it reads near black at a distance, and that contrast is what gives the rug its structure across a large floor. The accents do the real work: ivory and cream in the spandrels, the sub-medallion and the guard stripes; a clear sky blue in the medallion center and scattered through the border flowers; olive and sage green in the leaves; rust, apricot and soft gold in the palmettes; and small touches of pale rose that keep the reds from flattening. Shoppers comparing red Persian rugs will find this one on the brighter, cleaner side of the family rather than the dark burgundy end, so it lifts a room with dark wood floors or heavy furniture.

Kashan: Weaving Town and Weave Quality

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its reputation goes back to the Safavid court workshops: soft lustrous local wool, disciplined curvilinear drawing, and the classic formula of red field, navy lobed medallion and ivory spandrels that this rug follows exactly. It is also the most quietly famous Persian design in America, because when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. The back photo tells you what you need to know about the weave, with small tight knots in even rows on a cotton foundation and the pattern reading almost as clearly from behind as from the front, which is the mark of careful workshop knotting rather than quick village work. The low clipped pile on a dense foundation is also why Kashans take traffic well and keep their drawing sharp for decades.