8'6" x 13'4" Persian Kashan Rug | Signed Light Grey All-Over Floral | Fine Wool Pile

Most Kashan rugs arrive with a red field and a navy medallion, which is exactly why this one stops you. The weaver laid an all-over floral design across a pale grey ground, skipped the central medallion entirely, and then signed the work in a small cartouche set into the end border, the sort of detail a workshop only adds when it is proud of the piece. At 8'6" x 13'4" it is a true room-size rug with a 3/8" wool pile on a cotton foundation, and after handling it we can say the surface is even, the handle is supple and the condition is excellent throughout. Every piece we sell, this signed Persian Kashan rug included, ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The field is a continuous lattice of arabesque vines carrying palmettes, serrated lanceolate leaves, rosettes and small star flowers, all mirrored across both the long and short axis so the drawing reads correctly from either end of the room. At the center a single 8 petal rosette in red and navy marks the axis without breaking the all-over rhythm, and the 4 corners of the field are anchored by large curled palmette clusters that give the composition weight where a medallion rug would use spandrels. The main border runs a stately turtle palmette and vine procession, framed on each side by narrow guard stripes of linked rosettes and a fine meander, with a third outer band of reciprocal trefoils tightening the whole frame. The signature cartouche sits centered in the end border, a small roundel holding a blue star above woven Persian script, flanked by a golden ratchet motif. Close photography of the reverse shows crisp, upright knot rows and clear articulation of every leaf tip, which is what allows curved vinework at this scale to stay fluid rather than blocky.

A Quiet Palette of Light Grey, Distant Blue and Olive Brown

The ground is light grey with a faint green-ivory warmth to it, the kind of neutral that shifts through the day and never reads cold. Over it the weaver worked a full range of distant blues, from a deep indigo used for outlining and leaf spines, through a mid cornflower in the palmette petals, to a pale sky blue that lifts the smaller blossoms off the field. Olive brown and a soft camel carry the vine scrolls and the larger corner palmettes, tying the blues back to the ground rather than letting them float. Accents of ivory, dusty rose and a very sparing brick red appear in the flower hearts, with tiny points of gold in the border ratchets and the signature panel. The main border picks up an olive-tinged sand that separates it cleanly from the field, while the outer guard reads almost white. The overall effect is restrained and luminous, a Kashan for rooms with pale walls, natural oak or limestone floors, where a red field would take over rather than settle in.

Kashan: Central Persia and the Workshop Tradition

Kashan sits in central Persia north of Isfahan, on the edge of the desert, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century. The town is known for soft, lustrous wool and for a disciplined urban weave: symmetrical knots pulled tight on a cotton warp, clipped low so the drawing stays legible. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor, which tells you how firmly this design has entered the American idea of what a Persian rug looks like. A signed piece such as this one means a named workshop stood behind the finished rug, and workshops sign the pieces they expect to be looked at closely. Woven on that tradition, this is one of the more graceful large Persian rugs we have taken in, and at 8'6" x 13'4" it covers a full seating group or a 10 seat dining table with the borders still clear of the chair legs.