7'9" x 11'9" Persian Kashan Rug | Wool | Red Violet and Ivory

A hand-knotted Kashan from Persia, measuring 7'9" x 11'9" and falling in the 8x10 to 10x14 range that suits a dining table or a seating group without crowding either. The pile is wool at 3/8", and the first impression is a red violet field carrying a pointed ivory and dark medallion, framed by a wide border so dark it reads almost black in the photographs. The rectangular format is true, with the medallion sitting centred and the corner spandrels matched on all four sides.

Design

The field is covered edge to edge in a fine scrolling vine, every stem turning into a palmette, a rosette or a small curling leaf, with nothing left plain. At the centre sits a lobed medallion in dark blue-black, its inner cartouche worked in ivory around a single starred rosette, and a pendant drops from each end into the field. The spandrels repeat that dark ground in the corners with ivory inner panels, so the field reads as a shaped lozenge of red. Three bands make up the border: a broad main band of linked palmettes and arabesque vinework on dark ground, flanked by narrow guard stripes of small flowerheads and leaf tips on ivory and on a lighter blue.

Colour

The field is a red violet, closer to raspberry than to brick, and it lightens toward coral under direct light in the floor photographs. Against it the border and medallion ground go almost to ink, a graphite black with a blue cast that pushes the red forward rather than competing with it. The drawing is carried in ivory and soft beige, with small accents of ochre, moss green, rose and a pale sky blue in the guard stripes, which keep the two main colours from sitting too flatly against each other.

Making

Hand-knotted in Persia in wool, with a 3/8" pile and a cotton-coloured fringe at both ends. The back, shown flat in the last photograph, is even and legible, the design reading clearly through the foundation knot by knot. Condition is given as excellent, with pile depth consistent across the field and the selvedges intact. It is one of many hand-knotted rugs we carry in this Kashan drawing, though the raspberry cast of this field is less common than the usual madder red.