9'10" x 13'4" Persian Kashan Rug | Signed Navy Medallion on Red Floral Field | Excellent Condition

This is a full room size piece from the workshop tradition that made Persian Kashan rugs the benchmark for formal floral weaving in central Persia. It measures 9'10" x 13'4", hand-knotted knot by knot on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" wool pile that still stands full and even from selvage to selvage. The weaver signed the work in a small cartouche woven into the top border, which is something you only see when the workshop was willing to put its name behind the piece. The wool has taken on the light sheen that comes with careful use and proper washing, the fringes are intact, and the drawing holds together across the full 13 feet of length without wander. Every rug we ship leaves with a certificate of authenticity that records origin, materials and size. If you are comparing pieces at this footprint, it sits alongside our other 10x13 Persian rugs.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Kashan formula, drawn with real discipline. At the center sits a navy lobed medallion carrying an ivory cusped inner panel, and inside that an 8 petal rosette ringed by small palmettes and blossoms. A slender pendant finial reaches out of the medallion at each end. The surrounding field is not left open: it is filled edge to edge with a fine all over lattice of curling vines, serrated leaves, Shah Abbas palmettes, rosettes and small buds, all mirrored on both axes so the pattern reads the same from either end of the room. Four navy spandrels close the corners with ivory and pale blue arabesque work. The wide navy main border runs a chain of alternating palmettes and rosettes on a scrolling vine, framed by 3 narrow guard stripes on each side, the outermost pair on ivory with a running flower vine.

A Detailed Look at the Color

The field is a true madder red, warm and slightly brick toned rather than pink or orange, and it carries a soft natural variation across the width that only hand-dyed wool gives. Against it the borders, medallion and spandrels are a deep inky navy that reads almost black in low light and opens into blue where the light hits the pile. The drawing inside both grounds is where the palette gets interesting: ivory and cream outlines carry the vines, then the flowerheads come in pale sky blue, cornflower and steel blue, soft rose, apricot, mustard gold and a muted sage green, with small touches of dark brown and terracotta in the leaves. The innermost medallion panel is ivory with rose, powder blue and green blossoms, which pulls the eye straight to the center. The narrow ivory guard stripes and the pale blue cartouche ground keep the whole red and navy mass from feeling heavy.

Kashan: The Town and the Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan on the edge of the desert, and its weaving descends directly from the Safavid court workshops. The town built its name on two things: soft lustrous local wool and a drawing standard held to by named workshops rather than village weavers. That shows here in the evenness of the knotting, the crispness of the curved vine lines, and the fact that a design this dense holds its symmetry over 160 inches. The back of this rug, shown against a ruler in the last photograph, is tight and regular with clean knot rows on the cotton warp, which is what keeps a Kashan flat underfoot for generations. It is also the design most Americans have already seen without naming it: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor.