9'10" x 13'4" Persian Kashan Rug | Signed Cartouche | Navy Medallion on Deep Red Field

This is a signed, room-filling Persian Kashan rug measuring 9'10" x 13'4", hand-knotted in fine wool on a cotton foundation and in excellent condition with a full, even pile throughout. The weaver signed the piece in a woven cartouche set into the upper border, which on a Kashan of this scale points to a proper workshop commission rather than a village order. It sits squarely in the 10x13 Persian rugs class, the size that anchors a formal seating group or a long dining table with border to spare, and the drawing holds together beautifully at that width because the medallion, spandrels and border repeats were all planned to the finished dimensions. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The composition is the classic Kashan formula executed with unusual density. A stepped, lobed medallion holds the center, built in concentric layers: an ivory core with an 8 petal rosette, a ring of sky blue palmettes and curling split leaves, then a navy surround outlined in ivory. Above and below it, two pendant cartouches drop into the field on a fine stem. The field itself is not empty ground waiting on the medallion; it is filled edge to edge with scrolling vinework, lotus blossoms, small rosettes and serrated leaves that mirror across both axes, so the eye keeps finding new small drawings inside a pattern it already read. The 4 corners carry ivory spandrels drawn with the same vine and blossom vocabulary. Framing all of it is a wide navy main border of linked palmettes and rosettes, flanked by a pair of narrow floral guard stripes and an outer meander, with the ivory selvedge and plain fringe finishing the ends cleanly.

A Deep Red Field With Navy, Ivory and Sky Blue

The ground is a true madder-toned red, deep and slightly cool rather than orange, and the wool takes light in a way that makes the same field read brighter along the medallion and darker toward the corners. Against it the palette is disciplined: inky navy in the main border and the medallion surround, clear ivory in the spandrels and the medallion core, and a soft sky blue that runs through the palmettes, leaves and border blossoms and keeps the whole design from going heavy. Smaller accents of rose pink, saffron gold, sage green and a chalky cream appear in the flower heads, visible in the close-up detail, and those little points of light are what give the field its depth. Buyers shopping red and burgundy Persian rugs will find this one warm without being dark, and it works with both cream walls and wood tones.

Kashan: Central Persia and the Court Workshop Tradition

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that produced the most celebrated Persian weaving of the 16th century. The town's reputation rests on two things: soft, lustrous local wool that holds dye with a glow, and a house style, red field, navy lobed medallion, ivory spandrels, that generations of master weavers refined rather than replaced. This is also the rug most Americans have already seen without naming it: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. On this piece the weave is tight and regular, the back shows small, even knots across a cotton foundation, and the curved outlines of the medallion and vines resolve smoothly instead of stepping, which is the practical test of a workshop-grade Kashan rather than a coarse copy.