9'10" x 13'2" Persian Kashan Rug | Pistachio Green All-Over Floral | Signed Cartouche

Most Kashans come out of the loom on a deep madder red or a navy ground, which is exactly why this one stops you. The field of this 9'10" x 13'2" Persian Kashan rug is a soft pistachio green, a shade the workshop would have dyed deliberately and in small quantity, and against it every flower reads clearly rather than fighting the ground. The weaver signed the piece in a cartouche set into the main border, which tells you this left a named workshop rather than an anonymous village loom. The pile is a full 3/8" of lustrous wool on a cotton foundation, the handle is supple, and the condition is excellent with even pile from end to end. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction, and at this size it sits comfortably among our 10x13 Persian rugs.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. The drawing is a true all-over composition: a continuous system of thin scrolling vines that swings across the whole field in mirrored arcs, hung with lobed palmettes, 8 petal rosettes, tulip heads, small star flowers and curled split-leaf arabesques. Look at the close-up and you can follow one vine as it loops, throws off a serrated leaf, meets its mirror image and carries on, which is the discipline that separates a drawn Kashan from a copied one. The corners are resolved cleanly rather than cut off mid-motif. Framing the field is a wide navy main border carrying alternating palmettes and rosettes on a turning vine, flanked by ivory guard stripes with a fine meander and by narrow sky blue bands of repeating flower heads. The signature cartouche is worked into that main border in dark navy script on ivory, with a rust colored flower head above it.

Pistachio Green, Navy and Salmon Rose

The field green is soft and slightly grey, closer to pistachio shell or celadon than to grass, and it shifts with the light: cooler and more silver when the pile lies away from you, warmer and more sage when it lies toward you. On top of that ground the palette works in two registers. The cool register is two clear blues, a mid sky blue used for the larger flower heads and a deep navy used for the outlines, the leaf tips and the main border ground, and the contrast between those two blues is what gives the field its depth. The warm register is smaller and more precious: salmon rose, apricot, a few points of true rust red at the flower centers, and a soft olive brown in the leaves. Ivory does the separating work, outlining the vines and lighting up the guard borders so the navy band never turns heavy. The overall effect is quiet and slightly faded in feeling even though the pile is full, which is why this rug sits so easily with grey, oatmeal and pale wood.

Kashan: The Town, the Workshop and the Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century. The town's reputation rests on two things: soft lustrous local wool that takes dye beautifully and holds a sheen for decades, and a drawing tradition precise enough to carry curved vines at speed without the line breaking. It is also the most recognizable Persian design in America. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This piece was woven to workshop standard, with a firm cotton foundation, a tightly packed weave that keeps the flower heads crisp at arm's length, and a signature that a village weaver would never have added. At 9'10" x 13'2" it was made as a room size piece for a formal space, and it has the weight and the drape to prove it.