8' x 13' Persian Kashan Rug | Dark Rose Field with Eggplant Medallion | Semi-Antique Wool Pile

This is a true room size piece, an 8' x 13' semi-antique Persian Kashan rug hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation, with a dark rose field carrying a single eggplant purple medallion. The length is generous for the width, which is exactly what you want under a long sofa run or a 10 seat table, and the extra 13 feet lets the all over floral drawing breathe instead of crowding the medallion. The pile stands at a full 3/8" with even wear from end to end, the selvages are intact and the ivory fringe is clean and original. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming the origin, the materials and the hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Kashan formula executed with unusual freedom. A lobed diamond medallion sits at center, tipped at top and bottom with slender pendants, and inside it a gold cartouche frames an 8 petal rosette surrounded by pink blossoms, turquoise buds and curling ivory vine. Around the medallion the field is filled edge to edge with an all over floral system rather than a plain open ground: large serrated palmettes, split arabesque leaves, tulip and carnation sprays and small blue forget-me-not clusters, all linked by a thin vine that loops back on itself so no two quadrants read identically. The corner spandrels are drawn in the same deep purple as the medallion and finished with a scalloped ivory outline. A wide main border carries alternating rosettes and curled leaves on an eggplant ground, flanked by teal guard stripes of small palmettes and a fine barber pole minor stripe, and the outermost band of tiny reciprocal diamonds keeps the whole frame crisp.

The Dark Rose and Eggplant Purple Palette

The field is a dark rose, a red pulled toward raspberry rather than toward brick or orange, and it holds a soft wool luster that shifts a half shade as you walk around it. Against that ground the medallion, the spandrels and the main border are worked in eggplant purple, dark enough to read almost black across a room and clearly aubergine up close. The third color is the one that makes the rug: a strong teal blue used for the guard stripes, the inner shading of the corner pieces and many of the leaf forms, a cooler note that keeps the rose and purple from going heavy. Ivory does the drawing work, outlining the medallion cartouche, the arabesque leaves and the reciprocal outer band, while old gold fills the rosette centers and several of the larger palmettes. Sage green, apricot, salmon pink and small touches of sky blue scatter through the flowers. Nothing here is loud, and the combination settles easily with walnut and mahogany, dark leather, brass and warm white walls.

Kashan, Central Persia, and How It Was Woven

Kashan sits in central Persia north of Isfahan and has been weaving since the Safavid court workshops, which is why the town still owns the curved, drawn line that separates city work from village work. The local wool is soft and lustrous, and Kashan weavers use it at a knot count fine enough to turn a floral vine without the steps and jogs you see in geometric weaving. Look at the back photograph and you can read the weave: a tight, regular cotton foundation with the knot rows sitting straight and the pattern coming through the reverse almost as clearly as the face, which is the mark of a properly beaten down city rug rather than a loose commercial one. This is also the most recognizable Persian design in America. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. A piece of this age and size has already proven itself, and at 8' x 13' it is ready to be walked on for another few decades.