8'2" x 11'11" Persian Kashan Rug | Turquoise Blue Open Field Medallion | Signed Cartouche

A weaver who signs a rug is telling you to judge it. This one carries a woven cartouche in the end border, and the piece backs it up: 8'2" x 11'11" of hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation, with a wide open turquoise blue field that leaves nowhere to hide sloppy drawing or uneven wool. The palette is what sets it apart from the usual red-ground formula of Persian Kashan rugs, and the scale puts it squarely among large 8x12 Persian rugs that anchor a full seating group. Woven in the 2000s and in perfect condition, it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Kashan architecture drawn with the softer floral hand associated with Kerman workshops. A single lobed medallion sits dead center, filled with a small ivory rosette surrounded by curling palmettes, serrated leaves and tiny blossoms in rose, navy and cream. Above and below it run two stepped pendants that taper to fine finials, so the vertical axis of the rug reads as one continuous ornament. The field itself is left almost entirely plain, which is a deliberate choice: an open ground of this size shows every irregularity in the weave, and here the surface stays even from end to end. Around it, deep scalloped spandrels in madder red carry ivory cartouches packed with vine work, and the main border alternates large palmettes with blue boteh-like cones on a red ground, framed by narrow navy guard stripes of rosettes and reciprocal chevrons. Look at the corners in the close-up photographs and the border pattern resolves cleanly at all 4 turns, which is the mark of a drawn cartoon rather than an improvised one.

A Turquoise Blue Field Set Against Madder Red

The field is a clear mid turquoise blue, cooler and greener than the navy most Kashan weavers reach for, and the wool takes light so that the ground shifts between teal and a brighter sea blue as you walk past it. Against that, the medallion and borders are worked in warm madder red with a faint terracotta undertone, the single strongest contrast in the rug. Ivory does the mediating work: it outlines the medallion, fills the spandrel reserves and lights up the vine scrolls in the main border so the red never turns heavy. Inside those reserves sit small notes of navy, sage green, dusty rose, camel and soft brown, all at low volume, which keeps the eye moving without breaking the two-color scheme. The outer selvage is a solid red line and the fringe is natural ivory cotton. In a room with warm wood floors, as shown in the photographs, the blue reads as the dominant color and the red border functions as a frame.

Kashan Weaving and the Quality of the Knot

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its workshops trace their tradition back to the Safavid court looms of the 16th century. The town's reputation rests on 2 things: local wool that is unusually soft and lustrous, and a disciplined workshop system where a designer draws the cartoon and the weavers follow it knot for knot. That is why Kashan became the default image of a Persian rug in the West, and why when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This example is woven on a cotton warp and weft with a dense wool pile, cropped low enough that the curved outlines of the medallion stay crisp under the ruler in the detail photograph. The handle is firm and flat, the back is tightly packed, and the signature cartouche identifies it as workshop rather than village work, which is exactly what you want when the design leaves that much open ground exposed.