9'10" x 12'11" Persian Kashan Rug | Red Field Navy Floral Medallion | Ivory Spandrels | Excellent Condition

This 9'10" x 12'11" Kashan is the classic central Persian formula worked at full room size: a deep red field filled edge to edge with curling floral vine, a navy lobed medallion set dead centre, and ivory spandrels cutting into all 4 corners. The pile is hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation, clipped low so the small drawing stays legible when you are standing over it rather than kneeling on it, and the rug reads even and clean across the field in every photograph. Condition is excellent, the selvedges are tight and the ivory fringe is full at both ends. At roughly 10 by 13 feet it behaves like a floor, not an accent, which is why buyers shopping 10 x 13 Persian rugs tend to land on a Kashan of exactly this type. It ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The centre is a stepped navy medallion built in layers: an outer navy lobe outlined in ivory, an inner ivory cartouche, and at the very heart a small blue 8 petal rosette. Slender navy pendants drop from the top and bottom of the medallion into the field, each finished with a hooked finial. Around it the field carries a dense all over arrangement of rosettes, palmettes, serrated feather leaves and tight scrolling vine, drawn small and repeated with real discipline rather than filled in loosely. The 4 ivory spandrels are the counterpoint, each one carrying an arabesque of pale vine and small blossoms that lifts the corners away from the red. The border system is triple: a wide navy main band of alternating palmettes joined by an ivory meander, flanked on both sides by mid blue guard stripes of linked rosettes, with fine ivory hairlines separating every element and a narrow red outer stripe closing the whole design.

Colour: True Red, Navy and Cool Blue

The ground is a true clear red, closer to a ripe tomato red than to burgundy or rust, and it holds that tone consistently from the medallion out to the border with no abrash banding visible in the photographs. Against it the medallion and main border read deep navy, almost inky where the wool takes the light. The guard stripes are a noticeably cooler mid blue, the kind of sky and denim blue that shows clearly in the close detail shots, and it recurs inside the field as tiny rosette centres and leaf veins. Ivory does the outlining work throughout: the medallion core, the spandrels, the vine meander in the main border and every hairline division. Green appears as an olive to sage accent on the feather leaves and smaller blossoms, warm enough to sit with the red rather than fight it. Finish the palette with soft rose pink, a little ochre gold and touches of brown in the flower heads, which is what keeps a red and navy rug from ever looking flat.

Kashan: Central Persia and the Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan on the edge of the desert, and its weaving reputation runs straight back to the Safavid court workshops. The town's own wool is soft and lustrous, which is why a Kashan pile takes light the way it does here, and the local looms have stayed loyal to one house formula for generations: red field, navy lobed medallion, ivory spandrels, triple border. That formula is so familiar that most people have seen it without naming it. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. The weave itself is a true town weave rather than village work, knotted on a cotton foundation with a fine enough knot count to carry the small vine and the curved outlines cleanly, as the close ruler shot on the border shows. If you want the full background on the type before you commit, read our guide to Persian Kashan rugs.