8' x 11'2" Persian Kashan Rug | Red Lilac All-Over Floral Field | Semi-Antique, Excellent Condition

This is a town weave from central Persia in the size most American rooms actually want, and it skips the medallion that most people expect from Persian Kashan rugs in favor of an uninterrupted floral field. The 8' x 11'2" format reads larger than its numbers because there is no central anchor to break the eye, so the drawing runs corner to corner. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, still full and even across the whole surface, with clean white fringe at both ends and tight selvages, which is why the condition reads excellent rather than merely good for its age. Buyers comparing 8x11 Persian rugs will find very few in this color family at this level of drawing. Every rug ships with our certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The field carries a true all-over floral design, built on a thin vine lattice that links rosettes, open palmettes and small lotus heads in a repeating mirrored rhythm. Large serrated saz leaves curl between the blossoms and give the field its movement, while tiny 8 petal rosettes and buds fill the ground so completely that there is almost no open color left. The drawing is symmetrical along both axes, with matched floral sprays rising from the bottom and top of the field, a sign of a workshop cartoon rather than improvised village drawing. The main border is a navy ground carrying alternating upright palmettes and broad arcaded floral forms, separated by vine turns, and it is framed on both sides by narrow guard stripes: a light green band of meandering vine and rosettes, plus fine barberpole and reciprocal trefoil minors that keep the navy from crowding the field. The corners resolve cleanly, which is the detail to check on any Kashan, and here the border pattern turns the corner without being cut off mid motif.

Color: Red Lilac, Pastel Turquoise and a Single Blue

The field color is the reason to own this piece. It is a deep raspberry red pulled toward lilac, cooler and more violet than the brick and tomato reds you see in most red and burgundy Persian rugs, and the wool takes light so that the ground shifts between rose red and a dusty wine tone as you walk around it. Against that field the palette stays disciplined: one clear mid blue used for leaf tips and flower centers, a pastel turquoise that appears in small amounts and does most of the brightening, ivory and cream for blossom outlines and the fine minor stripes, soft pistachio green in the guard border and the larger leaves, and a muted khaki olive that keeps the greens from reading new. The main border is a very dark navy indigo, nearly black where it meets the field, which frames the red rather than competing with it, and it is lifted by small rose pink rosettes and turquoise flower hearts set along its length. Abrash is minimal, with only a gentle variation in the red toward one end, the natural signature of hand-dyed wool rather than a flaw.

Kashan: The Weaving Town and the Quality of the Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its weaving goes back to the Safavid court workshops, which is why the formal floral vocabulary here looks closer to a palace cartoon than to anything tribal. The town is known for soft, lustrous local wool and for drawing that stays precise across a large field, and both are visible on this piece: the knot lines are straight, the vines keep their curve, and the pile still has sheen after decades of settling. The back photograph shows the weave clearly, a dense, even, double wefted cotton foundation with small tight knots and no gaps or repairs, which is what gives a Kashan its characteristic firm handle and long service life. Kashan is also the most recognizable Persian weave in American rooms, and if you pay attention when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. At 8' x 11'2" with a 3/8" wool pile, this one is built for a room that gets daily traffic.