9'10" x 13'5" Persian Kashan Rug | All-Over Boteh Paisley Field | Signed Workshop Piece

This is a room-filling 9'10" x 13'5" hand-knotted Persian Kashan rug woven entirely in wool on a cotton foundation, and it departs from the usual Kashan formula in the best way: instead of a heavy central medallion, the whole field is given over to rank after rank of small boteh paisleys on a pale ivory ground. The pile stands a full 3/8", the handle is firm and even, and the end border carries a woven cartouche signature, which tells you this came off a workshop loom rather than a village one. At just under 10 by 13.5 feet it works as a true anchor rug for a large formal space, and it sits squarely in the most requested bracket we stock, 10x13 Persian rugs. Condition is excellent, with full even pile corner to corner and straight original selvages, and the rug ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The field is a strict repeat: upright boteh, each one drawn with a lobed outline, a toothed feathered edge, a small beaded spine down the center and a hooked stem curling off at the base, set in staggered rows so the eye reads diagonals as well as columns. Tiny 6 petal rosettes and leaf sprigs fill the ground between them, which keeps the ivory from going flat. This kind of all-over repeat design is far more forgiving under furniture than a medallion, because there is no center to hide. The border system is unusually deep for a Kashan: a wide main border of large reclining paisleys, flanked by a narrow band of small rust hook motifs, then thin blue guard stripes and a fine cross-and-dot inner stripe, with a second broad paisley band running outside it. Corners resolve cleanly, the cartouche interrupts the end border exactly where it should, and the drawing holds its proportions along all 4 sides.

Ivory and Blue Color Reading

The ground is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream and oatmeal than to a cold white, and it shifts gently between a soft pearl and a light sand depending on which way the pile is brushed. The paisleys are worked in a stepped range of blues: a deep inky navy for outlines and spines, a mid slate blue for the body shading, and a pale powder blue for the feathered edges, so the motifs read as layered rather than drawn in one tone. Scattered through the field and concentrated in the narrow border band are small accents of rust and terracotta, the only warm note in the palette, plus touches of sage and soft grey-green in the leafwork. The overall effect is quiet and cool, which is why pieces like this move so easily into contemporary rooms where a red field would dominate. If this reading suits your space, the rest of our ivory Persian rugs run in the same register.

Kashan: The Town and the Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms carry the Safavid court workshop tradition forward more directly than almost any other town. The local wool is soft and lustrous, which is why a Kashan pile keeps a faint sheen and takes dye evenly, and the town's weavers are trained on the classic city formula of a lobed medallion, ivory spandrels and a red field. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. What makes this example worth a second look is that the same workshop discipline has been spent on a boteh repeat instead, which is harder to keep honest: every row has to land at the same height across 118 inches of width or the pattern visibly drifts, and here it does not. The knotting is tight and regular, the back shows clean rows and a well-packed cotton warp, and the signed cartouche in the end border points to a named workshop taking credit for a large commission.