9'10" x 13'5" Persian Kashan Rug | Red Field, Dark Indigo Medallion | Classic Central Persian Floral Design

This 9'10" x 13'5" piece is the textbook statement of what Persian Kashan rugs are known for: a deep red field, a lobed dark indigo medallion with an ivory heart, and ivory corner spandrels that square off the composition. The wool is hand-knotted on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile that still stands up full and even across the whole surface, and the condition is excellent, with crisp selvages and clean, original cotton fringe as shown in the detail photographs. At 118" by 161" it covers a full room with furniture on it, which puts it squarely among the 10x13 Persian rugs buyers look for when a 9x12 falls just short. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an 8 lobed indigo medallion built around an ivory cartouche, and inside that sits a small cross form rosette picked out in light blue and red, the kind of nested drawing that tells you the designer worked from a proper cartoon. Slender pendants reach out of the medallion along the long axis toward the top and bottom of the field, and all 4 corners carry ivory spandrels filled with curling vines and blossoms. The red field between them is not left open: it is covered with a flowing lattice of arabesque vines, split palmettes, boteh, serrated leaves and small bouquets, each one drawn with a dark outline so the motifs read clearly from standing height. The main border is a wide indigo band of alternating palmettes and rosettes on a meandering vine, framed on both sides by light blue guard stripes of tiny repeating flowerheads, with a final narrow ivory and rose stripe at the edge.

A Red Field Framed in Dark Indigo

The field is a saturated red that leans slightly cool, closer to a ripe tomato than to brick, and the lustre of the wool makes it shift between a lighter rose and a deeper carmine as you walk around it. Against that, the dark indigo of the medallion and the main border reads almost black at a distance and opens into true navy when you stand over it. The contrast carriers are the ivory spandrels and the ivory medallion center, which keep the whole composition from going heavy. Inside the drawing there is a surprising amount of secondary color: turquoise and sky blue in the guard stripes and flowerheads, soft gold and apricot in the palmettes, a pale olive green in the leaves, salmon and rose in the blossoms, and small touches of cream outlining the vines. It is a red and navy rug at room scale and a 7 color rug at close range.

Kashan: Central Persia and Its Court Weaving Tradition

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops, which is why the town's formula has barely changed in generations: red field, navy lobed medallion, ivory spandrels, and dense curvilinear floral drawing. Local wool is soft and lustrous, and Kashan weavers traditionally cut the pile a little low, here 3/8", so the fine curved lines of the vinework stay legible rather than blurring into the nap. This is also the most recognizable Persian design in America. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. On a piece this size, holding the medallion, the pendants and all 4 spandrels in true symmetry over 161" of length is the real test of the workshop, and the drawing stays square from end to end.