8'10" x 12'6" Persian Kashan Rug | Ivory All-Over Boteh Field | Signed Workshop Cartouche

Most Kashans announce themselves with a big lobed medallion. This one does the opposite. The weaver filled the entire 8'10" x 12'6" ivory field with rank after rank of boteh, each one drawn by hand, and then signed the work in a small cartouche woven into the top border. It is a quieter, more scholarly kind of Persian Kashan rug, the sort a weaver makes when he wants the drawing itself to carry the piece. The pile is fine wool on a cotton foundation, the handle is supple, and the rug has never been used. At this footprint it sits comfortably among 9x12 Persian rugs and will hold a full seating group or a 8 chair table. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The field is a true all-over design: staggered rows of large boteh, the teardrop paisley that Persian weavers have used for centuries, each one leaning to the left and outlined in a serrated dark contour. Look closely at the detail photograph and the construction becomes clear. Inside every large boteh sits a smaller mirrored one, filled with dotted rosettes, and between the rows the weaver has tucked a pair of miniature boteh, small 8 point stars and a thin curling vine that ties the whole grid together. Nothing repeats mechanically. The borders answer the field rather than contrasting with it: a broad main band of larger paisleys on their own vine, flanked by narrow guard stripes of tiny hooked boteh marching nose to tail. Set into the upper border is the cartouche, the weaver's signature in navy Persian script, which on a Kashan of this drawing means the rug came out of a named workshop rather than an anonymous loom.

Ivory Ground, Slate Blue and Rust

The dominant color is ivory, a soft cream that reads warm under lamplight and closer to bone in daylight, and it is the ground for every part of the rug including the borders, which is why the piece looks so luminous laid out flat. Against it the weaver worked a restrained palette: navy for the outlines and the signature script, a powdery slate blue for the interiors of the paisleys and the small connecting leaves, rust and terracotta for the dotted infill and the little flower heads, chestnut brown for the stems, a thread of mustard gold along the guard stripes, and touches of sage green in the foliage. There is no single loud color anywhere. The effect is a neutral rug at a distance that turns into a blue and rust rug up close, which makes it unusually easy to live with beside wood floors, stone, linen upholstery or a darker wall.

Kashan: Weaving City of Central Persia

Kashan lies in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops. The town has two lasting advantages: soft, lustrous local wool that takes dye cleanly and holds a sheen for generations, and a drawing tradition disciplined enough to carry an all-over boteh field across nearly 13 feet without the rows drifting. The knotting here is even and tight enough to keep the serrated paisley outlines crisp from one end of the rug to the other, and the pile has been clipped low so the drawing stays legible. Kashan is also the Persian rug most people have seen without knowing it: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This one, signed and never used, is a considerably more personal example than the medallion pieces that design turned into a household image.