9'10" x 13' Persian Kashan Rug | Classic Floral Medallion | Mellowed Rust Red Field, Excellent Condition

This is the classic formula that made the town famous, woven at full room size. A navy lobed medallion floats on a softly faded rust red field, surrounded by scrolling vinework and framed by a deep navy border with aqua guard bands. At 9'10" x 13" the rug covers a dining table with chairs pulled out or anchors a full seating group, and it sits squarely in the most useful of the 10x13 Persian rugs we carry. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, still full and even across the field, with the original fringe at both ends. Every Persian Kashan rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity issued by Rugs.net as the direct importer, naming origin, materials and size.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the full Kashan court layout. At the center sits a lobed navy medallion with an ivory inner cartouche and a pale blue rosette core built on an 8 petal flower with a small cross-shaped heart, finished top and bottom with slender pendant finials. Radiating from the medallion, the open field carries an allover arrangement of palmettes, rosettes, serrated leaves and curling vine tendrils, each cluster drawn on a curved line rather than an angular one, which is the test of a town loom rather than a village one. Four navy corner spandrels mirror the medallion in miniature, outlined in ivory and filled with aqua and salmon vinework, so the eye reads the field as a shaped oval. The main border repeats alternating palmettes and vase-like floral forms on navy, flanked by light blue guard bands of linked rosettes and a narrow ivory stripe of running vine at the outer edge. Nothing in the composition is random: every motif on the left answers one on the right.

A Mellowed Palette of Rust Red, Navy, Aqua and Ivory

The field is a faded rust red that leans toward brick in strong light and toward dusty coral in shade, the kind of settled tone that decorators look for and that cannot be manufactured. Against it, the borders and medallion are a near-black navy with a faint aubergine depth where the light catches the pile. The surprise is the blue: a clear aqua, almost seafoam, runs through the guard bands, the spandrel vines and the small medallion rosette, lifting the whole palette and keeping the red from reading heavy. Sage and olive greens appear in the leaves and in several of the border palmettes, with ivory and soft cream carrying the medallion cartouche, the outline work and the outermost vine stripe. Accents of salmon, apricot, pale gold and a trace of butter yellow are scattered through the flowerheads. If you are furnishing around warm neutrals, walnut floors or deep blue upholstery, this sits comfortably among red and burgundy Persian rugs while behaving far more quietly than a bright new red.

Kashan: Central Persia's Court Weaving Town

Kashan lies in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century. The town's reputation rests on two things: soft, lustrous local wool that takes dye beautifully and polishes with use, and the discipline of its drawing, the red field with a navy lobed medallion and ivory spandrels that became the single most recognizable Persian formula in the world. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This piece is town work rather than village work, knotted on a cotton foundation with the tight, regular Persian knot you can see in the measured border photograph, which is why the curved vines hold their shape at this scale instead of breaking into steps. The mellowed palette, the settled handle and the slight abrash in the field all point to a rug with real age behind it, and if you want to understand how that is judged, read our guide on how to date an Oriental rug.