8'2" x 12'1" Persian Kashan Rug | Ivory All-Over Floral Medallion | Signed Cartouche

Most Persian Kashan rugs arrive with a deep red field, which is exactly why this one stands apart: the ground is an open, warm ivory, and the whole drawing reads as drawing rather than as a block of color. It measures 8'2" x 12'1", hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile that still stands firm and even across the full field. The weaver signed the piece in a small woven cartouche set into the border, seen in the close-up photograph, which places it with a named workshop rather than an anonymous bazaar run. Condition is excellent, with full pile, straight sides and original ends. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a layered lobed medallion: a small navy rosette at the core, ringed by a cusped cartouche, then a pale blue lobed frame, then a soft taupe halo that lifts the whole ornament off the ivory ground. Slender pendant finials run north and south from the medallion, each one tipped with a palmette. Rather than clearing the field around the medallion, the weaver kept the all-over floral drawing running continuously underneath it, so scrolling vines, split palmettes, 8 petal rosettes, tulip heads and curling sickle leaves fill every part of the ground and pass behind the medallion instead of stopping at it. The corners repeat the same taupe halo as quarter spandrels, which keeps the geometry balanced without hard edges. Framing it all is a wide main border of alternating palmettes and vase-and-blossom groups, flanked by narrow guard stripes of meandering vine and a fine outer stripe of repeating leaf tips. Count the frames in the corner photograph and there are 7 distinct bands between field and selvage, a level of border engineering that only works when the knot count supports it.

The Ivory Palette and Its Accent Colors

The field is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached linen or bone than to a cold white, and it shifts a half tone with the direction of the pile. Against it the weaver worked a tight accent range: inky navy for the vine outlines and the medallion core, a powdery sky blue for petals and for the ground of the inner guard stripes, rose red and a deeper brick red at the flower hearts, olive gold for small leaves and for the hairline stripes that separate the borders, and walnut brown for stems. The taupe used behind the medallion and in the corner spandrels is the quiet hinge of the whole scheme, a greige that keeps the ivory from looking flat. Because the reds appear only as points rather than as a field, the rug reads as a neutral from across a room and only shows its full color when you stand over it. That makes it unusually easy to place against gray upholstery, walnut floors, pale oak or a painted white wall, where a classic red Kashan would dominate instead of cooperate.

Kashan: The Town and the Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century. The town's advantage was always the wool: soft, lustrous local fleece that takes dye cleanly and polishes rather than dulls with use. That is why the Kashan is the rug you see everywhere in interiors, including on the floor when you watch Shark Tank. The weave here is classic town work, knotted on a cotton warp and weft with a symmetrical knot, dense enough to carry curved vine lines and the fine outlines around every petal without the drawing breaking into steps. The back shows a tight, regular grid, the sides are level, and the rug lies flat straight off the roll. At 8'2" x 12'1" it belongs with the large 8x12 Persian rugs that anchor a full seating group or a 10 seat table, and the signed border means you can point to a workshop, not just a region.