8'2" x 12'4" Persian Kashan Rug | Ivory Floral Field with Navy Medallion | Excellent Condition

This is the quiet, light version of the Kashan formula. Instead of the usual deep red ground, the weaver worked the whole 8'2" x 12'4" field in ivory wool and let the drawing carry the rug: a navy and apricot medallion floating in a sea of scrolling vinework, framed by three borders in soft blue and cream. It reads as a pale rug from across the room and as an extremely busy, disciplined one up close, which is exactly what the best Persian Kashan rugs do. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, the condition is excellent with full even pile edge to edge, and the proportions put it squarely among large Persian rugs that will cover a full seating group. Every rug ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

At the center sits an 8 petal rosette medallion, outlined in dark indigo and filled with apricot, pale blue and cream, with a small starburst core. Radiating from it are 2 pendant finials on the long axis, each one a lantern-shaped cluster of palmettes and leaf forms. The 4 corners carry matching spandrels drawn in the same vocabulary, so the eye completes the medallion even where the field pattern crowds it. Between and around those anchors, the ivory ground is covered with a true all-over floral system: curling arabesque vines, split leaves, serrated palmettes, tiny rosettes and the occasional boteh tucked into a corner cluster. The main border runs a rhythm of large palmettes linked by vine, flanked on both sides by narrow guard stripes of reciprocal flowerheads and a fine outer stripe. Photograph 4 shows how tightly the vinework is drawn, with stems no thicker than 2 or 3 knots holding their curve across the whole field.

The Ivory and Blue Color Palette

The field is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than to a cold white, and it shifts gently with the lie of the pile from ecru to a soft oatmeal tone. Against it the drawing is done mostly in dark indigo and navy, which gives the outlines their crispness, with a large supporting family of light powder blue and slate blue filling the leaf and petal interiors. The medallion adds apricot and a soft salmon that appear nowhere else in quantity, which is what makes it read as the focal point. Scattered through the field are small notes of olive green, mustard gold, soft brown and clear rose to brick red, used only in flower hearts and tiny paired accents, never in blocks. The main border repeats the ivory ground with a pale blue-grey cast, so the frame is a shade cooler than the field and the borders define themselves without a hard color break. The overall effect is light, restrained and easy to decorate around.

Kashan Weaving in Central Persia

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that produced some of the most copied classical designs in the world. The town is known for soft, lustrous local wool and for the discipline of its drawing: medallion, pendants, spandrels and an all-over floral field, all balanced and resolved. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor, which tells you how completely this one town's formula became the picture most people hold of a Persian rug. The weave here is even and firm, with a 3/8" clipped pile on a cotton foundation that keeps the fine vinework legible rather than blurred, and the flat-lying handle you can see in the angled photograph is the mark of a well-tensioned loom. Held at 8'2" x 12'4", it is a workshop-scale piece woven by hand over a long stretch of time, and the pile has come through with no thinning and no repair.