9'1" x 12'4" Kashmir Oriental Rug | Kermanshah Medallion Design | Hand-Knotted Wool Pile

This is a full room-size hand-knotted piece from Kashmir, woven in the 2000s in wool on a cotton foundation and drawn in the Kermanshah manner: one large lobed medallion on an open champagne field, deep ivory corner spandrels, and a wide flowering main border. At 9'1" x 12'4" it covers the footprint most buyers are looking for when they shop the 9x12 rug size, with enough length to carry a sofa group or a 10 seat table and still show border on all 4 sides. The pile is even and full, the drawing is unusually patient for a rug of this scale, and the wool has the light-catching sheen you can see in the floor photographs. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is genuinely hand-knotted, together with its origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Kermanshah formula: a large 16 lobed medallion anchored at the center, a small gold rosette cartouche inside it, and a pendant dropping from each end onto the open field. Look closely at the medallion detail and the drawing is dense with small work, curling arabesque leaves, tiny 5 petal blossoms, split palmettes and paisley-shaped boteh forms, all outlined in gold against the burgundy ground. The field around it is not left empty; it carries a fine all-over vine that climbs in slender stems, each ending in a flowerhead, so the eye keeps finding new material the longer you look. The 4 corner spandrels are cut in ivory and filled with round floral cartouches and a heavier scrolling vine, which frames the medallion and gives the composition its depth. Three borders finish the rug: a broad ivory main band of alternating palmettes and rosettes joined by a running vine, flanked by narrow rust and green guard stripes with a repeating flower and leaf meander. The corners are resolved cleanly, meaning the weaver carried the border pattern around the turn rather than cutting it short, which is one of the fastest ways to judge how carefully a rug of this size was drawn.

A Champagne, Rust and Green Color Story

The dominant color is champagne, a warm golden camel that shifts toward honey in direct light and toward soft tan in shade. Against it the medallion reads deep burgundy with a brick-rust cast, outlined in a brighter copper gold that keeps the shape crisp from across the room. The spandrels and the main border move to a creamy ivory with a faint peach undertone, which lightens the whole perimeter and stops a 9'1" x 12'4" rug from feeling heavy. Inside that ivory ground the flowers are picked out in muted sage and olive green, terracotta, dusty rose, wine red and a scattering of near-black outlines that sharpen each motif. Brown appears in the outer guard stripe and along the selvedges, drawing a quiet frame around everything. There is no bright white and no cold tone anywhere in the palette, so the rug sits comfortably with cream walls, walnut and cherry furniture, brass and bronze metals, leather and warm grey upholstery. Because the ground color is a mid-tone rather than a pale one, it also hides ordinary household traffic far better than an ivory field would.

Woven in Kashmir, Northern India

Kashmir sits at the top of the Indian weaving map, and its workshops built their reputation on fine, closely drawn classical patterns rather than village geometry. India is where most of the world's best contemporary hand-knotted work is now made, and this piece shows why: the knotting is tight and regular across more than 12 feet of length, the curved lines of the medallion stay true, and the back photograph shows a clean, even grid on a cotton foundation with hand-tied fringe at both ends. A workshop taking on a 9x12 in this design has to hold the drawing steady for months, and any slack in the weave shows up immediately at this scale. The wool is well spun and full bodied, with a pile height that still feels plush underfoot, and the hand-finished selvedges are wrapped tight. If you are weighing this against a Persian piece, our guide on what actually separates an Oriental rug from a Persian one explains the distinction in plain terms, and this rug is a strong argument for how much refinement a good Kashmir workshop delivers for the money.