9'10" x 13'2" Persian Kashan Rug | Red Field, Dark Indigo Border | Signed Cartouche

This is a full room size Kashan in the classic city format, 9'10" x 13'2" of hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation, with a 3/8" pile that still stands up evenly across the whole field. A weaver's cartouche sits in the upper border, which on a piece this size almost always points to a named workshop rather than a home loom. The drawing is disciplined from end to end: the medallion is centered, the spandrels match at all 4 corners, and the border turns cleanly without the crowding you see on lesser copies. Buyers who want the background on this weaving town can read our guide to Persian Kashan rugs. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity recording its origin, materials and size.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a stepped, lobed medallion built in three layers: an ivory core carrying a sky blue rosette cluster, a dark indigo ring filled with palmettes and curling serrated leaves, and an outer lobed outline finished with fine ivory pinstriping. Anchor pendants extend above and below the medallion, and matching quarter medallions fill all 4 corners as spandrels, again in indigo with ivory tracery. Between them the red field is not left open: it carries a dense all-over lattice of palmettes, split leaves, rosettes and thin vine scroll, each blossom drawn separately rather than stamped in repeat. The main border runs a continuous arabesque of large palmettes joined by vine, flanked by sky blue guard stripes with a linked rosette chain, and one border panel breaks into the woven cartouche visible in the close-up photograph.

Color Palette

The field is a deep true red, the warm madder tone Kashan is known for, and it reads slightly lighter where the pile leans toward the light in the angled photograph. Against it the main border is a near black dark indigo, which gives the rug its weight and frames the field hard. The relief comes from ivory: the medallion core, the spandrel grounds and the fine outlines that separate every motif. A clear sky blue runs through the guard stripes, the central rosette and scattered blossoms, and it is the color that keeps the rug from feeling heavy. Smaller quantities of rose, soft sage green, saffron gold and a brown-toned caramel appear in the flower heads and leaf tips. It is a red and navy rug at a distance and a multi-color rug once you stand over it.

Kashan Origin and Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that set the standard for the medallion and spandrel layout still woven there today. The local wool is soft and lustrous, which is why a Kashan keeps its sheen decades after weaving, and the formula of red field, navy lobed medallion and ivory spandrels is the design most people picture when they picture a Persian rug. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This example is tightly knotted with straight selvages and a flat, square handle, and the back photograph shows small, regular knot nodes with no slubbing or dropped rows. Among 10x13 Persian rugs, a signed Kashan in this condition is the kind of piece that gets bought once and kept.