9'1" x 12'6" Persian Kashan Rug | Beige Field with Taupe Medallion | 1970s Wool Pile

This is a 1970s Persian Kashan rug in the quieter end of the Kashan palette: a warm beige field instead of the usual madder red, with a taupe and slate gray medallion floating in the center and a matching taupe main border framing the whole piece. The wool is the soft, slightly lustrous fleece Kashan weavers are known for, and after five decades it has taken on the low sheen that only good wool and time produce. At 9'1" x 12'6" it covers a full formal room with pile to spare, and the pile is still even from end to end with no thin passages. Every rug leaves us with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials, age and size.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the classic Kashan formula. A lobed central medallion sits in the middle of the field, finished top and bottom with pendant finials and filled with curling arabesque vine and small palmettes outlined in near black. Four matching corner spandrels repeat the medallion's tone and drawing, so the eye reads a clean oval reserve of open beige between them. That reserve is not empty: it carries a dense all-over floral field of rosettes, lanceolate leaves and slender vine scroll, each blossom drawn small and placed on a curved line rather than a grid. The frame is a multi band system, a wide main border of palmettes and cloud band scroll flanked by narrow guard stripes and thin gold outlines, with an ivory outermost band of linked rosettes. The close-up photographs show how tightly the black outlining holds every flower head in place, which is what keeps a busy field this legible at 9'1" x 12'6" and puts the rug squarely in the classic 9x12 Persian rugs bracket.

A Beige Field Worked in Taupe and Slate Gray

The field is a warm beige that leans toward sand and pale camel depending on the light, and it is the reason this rug works in rooms where a red Kashan would fight the furniture. Against it the medallion, spandrels and main border are worked in a soft taupe that shifts toward slate gray where the pile lies the other way, the effect you can see clearly in the rolled edge photograph. Detail work supplies the color: muted blue and teal in the leaf tips, a mineral light blue in the smaller rosettes, mustard and deep gold in the palmette centers and the hairline outline stripes, soft brown through the vine scroll, and tiny points of brick red used sparingly at the heart of a flower. The outlining is done in a very dark aubergine-navy that reads almost black across the room and gives the whole palette its backbone. The ivory outer guard band lifts the edges and keeps the taupe border from going heavy.

Kashan: Central Persia and the Court Workshop Tradition

Kashan sits in central Persia north of Isfahan and has been weaving since the Safavid court workshops, which is why its designs feel formal rather than tribal: curved line, balanced medallion, disciplined border. The town's advantage is its wool, soft and lustrous, and weavers there work it at a knot count fine enough to draw a rosette only a fingertip across, as the corner photographs show. Kashan is also the Persian rug most Americans have already seen without knowing it: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This example is a workshop-quality city piece from the 1970s, cotton warp and weft, wool pile, with straight sides, flat corners and clean hand-tied fringe at both ends.