9'10" x 13' Persian Kashan Rug | Ivory & Blue All-Over Panel Design | Signed Workshop Piece

This is a signed workshop piece from the early 2000s, woven on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" wool pile and kept in storage rather than put into a room, which is why the ivory ground still reads clean and the pile still has its original body. The weaver put his name in a small cartouche at the head of the border, visible in the close-up photographs, and a signature on a Kashan is not decoration: it means someone took responsibility for the drawing and the knot count. At 9'10" x 13" of loom width this piece sits squarely in the 10x13 Persian rug class, large enough to carry a full seating group with the front legs of every piece on the wool. If you want the background on the weave itself, our guide to Persian Kashan rugs covers it in depth. Every rug ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

Instead of the usual single lobed medallion, the weaver chose an all-over panel layout, the khesti or garden compartment format, which repeats across the full field without a center point. Two alternating panels do the work: a stepped star compartment filled with an 8 petal rosette and split palmettes, and a squared cartouche carrying a lattice of small hooked motifs over a checkered blue ground. Slim Greek key fretwork outlines the compartments and locks the whole grid together, while curling acanthus leaves, tiny 4 petal blossoms and paired bird-like leaf forms fill every gap. The main border runs a chain of interlocking diamond cartouches with rosette centers, framed on both sides by narrow guard stripes of rosettes and reciprocal trefoils, and an outer minor border of paired blossoms. The drawing is symmetrical corner to corner, the borders resolve cleanly at all 4 corners, and the repeat holds its rhythm over the full 13 feet without drifting.

A Study in Ivory and Blue

The field reads ivory from across a room, but up close it is built from three separate light tones: a warm cream in the open ground, a chalky pale blue in the star compartments, and a soft sage that outlines the leafwork. Against those pale values the weaver set deep cobalt and near-black navy in the rosettes and lattice panels, which is what gives the surface its depth in the overhead photograph. Narrow accents of rust red, terracotta and a dull gold appear in the flower centers and small paisley forms, enough to warm the palette without breaking the cool blue and ivory scheme. The main border shifts the temperature entirely, moving into camel and taupe brown with ivory and olive diamonds, so the field looks lighter by contrast and the rug frames itself. Colors are natural and even edge to edge with no abrash and no fade.

Kashan Weaving in Central Persia

Kashan sits in central Persia north of Isfahan and has been a weaving town since the Safavid court workshops, which is why its rugs still follow a drawn cartoon rather than a memorized village pattern. The local wool is soft and lustrous, and Kashan weavers clip it fairly low, here 3/8", so the fine detail in the panels stays legible instead of blurring into the pile. The reverse photograph shows the knotting straight and tight on a cotton foundation, with the design fully readable from the back, which is the test of an honest hand-knotted piece. Kashan is also the most recognizable Persian design in America: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This one is a signed workshop version of that tradition in an uncommon ivory and blue panel drawing rather than the familiar red and navy medallion.