9'10" x 13'2" Persian Kashan Rug | Red Floral Medallion | Fine Wool Pile, Excellent Condition

This is the drawing that made Persian Kashan rugs the benchmark for formal floor covering: a deep red field, a navy lobed medallion sitting dead center, and ivory corner spandrels that frame the whole composition. At 9'10" x 13'2" it covers a full dining or living space with the border still reading clearly on all 4 sides. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, hand-knotted throughout, with pile depth even from end to end and no thin areas in the photographs. Condition is excellent, the wool still has its natural shine, and the rug ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a pointed navy medallion with an ivory and light blue inner cartouche, built around a small 8 petal rosette, and the medallion is edged with a thin ivory outline that lifts it off the red ground. Around it the field is filled with curling arabesque vines, broad palmettes and small open blossoms, drawn loosely enough to breathe but dense enough that no part of the red reads as empty. Four ivory spandrels carry the same vine work in a lighter key and square off the field. The border system runs 7 bands deep: a wide navy main border of alternating palmettes and leaf forms, flanked by ivory and light blue guard stripes of running rosettes, then narrow reciprocal edges at the outer selvage. Corners resolve cleanly, which is a sign the weaver followed a proper workshop cartoon rather than improvising at the turn.

The Color Story in Detail

The field is a true tomato red with a faint rose cast where the light catches the pile, warm rather than orange and not a modern bright scarlet. Against it the main border and medallion read as a very dark indigo navy, nearly black in the shade of the photographs and clearly blue in the close-ups. The relief colors do the real work: ivory in the spandrels, guard stripes and medallion core, a medium sky blue in the rosettes and leaf tips, a soft saffron gold in the smaller blossoms, and touches of dusty rose, olive green and walnut brown through the vine work. Because the red and navy hold the structure, the lighter blues and golds scatter across the field like detail stitching, which is what keeps a rug this large from looking heavy underfoot.

Kashan: Town, Tradition and Weave Quality

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that set the classical vocabulary of medallion and vine. Local wool is soft and lustrous, which is why Kashan pile takes light the way it does here, and the town's house formula of red field, navy lobed medallion and ivory spandrels is exactly what this piece follows. The close-up with the ruler shows tight, regular rows of knots and clean color separation between motifs, the mark of a disciplined town weaver working to a cartoon rather than a village piece drawn freehand. It is also the design most people already know without naming it: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. Among 10x13 Persian Kashan rugs, a piece in this condition with the pile still full is the version worth holding on to.