9'10" x 13'9" Persian Kashan Rug | Ivory All-Over Floral Field | Sage Green Border, 2000s

Ivory-ground Kashans are the quieter branch of the family, and this one shows why weavers reserve them for their better wool. The field runs as an uninterrupted floral trellis with no central medallion, a layout that leaves nowhere to hide: the repeat has to stay true from the first row of knots to the last, across all 13'9" of length. The pile is hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation, dense and level end to end, with the fine dark outlining that marks a town workshop rather than village work. This Persian Kashan rug ships with a certificate of authenticity, and at 9'10" x 13'9" it lands in the most useful part of the 10x14 Persian rugs range for a large seating group.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is classic central Persian cabinet work. Thin brown vine stems sweep out of the field in mirrored arabesques, carrying large palmettes, 8 petal rosettes, half-open lotus blossoms and serrated saz leaves, with tiny paired buds and vase forms filling the gaps so no ivory pocket is left empty. Because there is no medallion, the eye reads the field as a continuous garden lattice, and the small diamond-shaped clusters at the crossings of the vines give it a gentle rhythm without ever becoming a grid. The main border sits on a soft green ground and alternates a navy-centered cartouche rosette with paired blue vases and lily sprays. It is framed on both sides by light blue guard stripes edged in a hairline of orange, then an ivory outer band with a leaf and blossom meander. All 4 corners resolve cleanly, the border turns are drawn rather than cut short, and the design meets the field on straight, uninterrupted lines.

Ivory, Blue and Sage Green Up Close

The ground is a warm, buttery ivory that reads closer to cream than white, and it gives the wool a visible sheen where the pile catches light. Blue does the heavy lifting on top of it, in at least 3 registers: deep navy for the flower hearts and outlines, a mid cornflower blue for petals and vine leaves, and a pale sky blue used almost as a highlight where the drawing needs to lift off the ivory. The main border shifts the mood with a muted sage green, dusty and slightly grey in daylight, that keeps the whole rug from feeling cold. Scattered through both field and border are small hits of tomato orange, saffron gold, dark wine red and a soft teal, each one no bigger than a blossom center, which is what keeps a largely ivory and blue rug from reading flat. Against dark walnut or oak flooring the ivory field brightens the room, and the sage border ties comfortably to grey stone, linen upholstery and blue-grey seating.

Kashan, the Weaving City of Central Persia

Kashan lies in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that set the standard for curvilinear Persian drawing. The city built its modern reputation on soft, lustrous local wool and on the familiar formula of a red field with a navy lobed medallion and ivory spandrels, which is why a Kashan is the rug most Americans picture when they think Persian. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This piece inverts the formula and drops the medallion entirely, which is the harder commission and typically goes to an experienced weaver. The evidence is in the handling: tight, even knotting on a cotton foundation, crisp outlines that hold their shape through curves, a firm and heavy handle, and a clipped pile that has kept full height across the whole surface. Woven in the 2000s and never put into service, it has the tight, unrubbed surface of a rug straight from the loom rather than the floor.