9'10" x 13' Persian Kashan Rug | Raspberry Red Medallion Field | Ardekan Woven, Excellent Condition

A full room-size piece in the classic central Persian idiom: a raspberry red field, a black lobed medallion with an ivory heart, and black spandrels that frame the whole composition. The back tag identifies it as an Ardekan weaving, a Persian town that works in the drawing vocabulary of Persian Kashan rugs, and the wool shows the glossy, slightly waxy handle that gives these rugs their depth of color. The pile measures 3/8" and reads evenly across all 4 corners, with no thin areas, no repairs and the original fringe intact. At 9'10" x 13" of floor coverage it sits squarely in the most useful proportion we sell, which is why 10x13 Persian rugs are so often the first size a buyer asks for. Every rug we ship leaves with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials, knotting and size.

Design and Motifs

The center is a pointed, lobed diamond medallion outlined in ivory, filled with black and carrying a small ivory cartouche at its heart around a single blue and rose rosette. Out of the medallion tips run slender ivory pendants that bleed into the field, and the surrounding ground is drawn as a dense all over lattice of curling vines, serrated leaves, palmettes and multi petal rosettes, each blossom outlined so that it reads clearly against the red. Black spandrels with ivory split arabesques close the 4 corners of the field. The main border is a black band of alternating palmettes and open rosettes joined by a thin vine, flanked by ivory and blue guard stripes of repeating buds and stylized tulips, 7 bands in all counting the narrow outer stripes. It is the formula anyone recognizes without naming it: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor, drawn almost exactly this way.

Color Palette

The field is a cool raspberry red, closer to crimson with a cherry edge than to brick or rust, and it shifts noticeably with the light: fuller and deeper when viewed against the pile, brighter and almost rose-toned when viewed with it. Against that red the borders and medallion ground sit in a near-black navy that gives the rug its weight and keeps the pattern from going busy. Inside the drawing the weaver used a tight group of secondary colors, soft ivory and cream for outlines, cartouches and spandrel vines, a dusty cornflower blue in the guard stripes and rosette centers, deeper indigo in the leaves, rose and old pink in the flower heads, and small accents of olive green, soft camel and the occasional yellow dot at a blossom center. The overall effect is a red and black rug that still reads jewel-like rather than dark, with enough ivory to lift the field in a room with moderate daylight.

Origin and Weaving Quality

Ardekan lies in central Persia, in the arid country south of the Kashan and Isfahan weaving belt, and its workshops have long woven to Kashan patterns on Kashan proportions, which is why the back tag names the town while the design name stays Kashan. The construction here is the dependable workshop standard for the region: a cotton foundation under a single knot wool pile, symmetrical knotting pulled tight enough that the back shows clean, regular rows and the fine detail in the rosettes and vine tips holds its shape, with a close 3/8" clip that keeps the drawing crisp rather than blurred. The wool itself is the reason to buy a rug like this rather than a finer but drier piece, soft and lustrous, dense underfoot, and tough enough that a room-size rug of these dimensions takes decades of traffic without the medallion or border wearing out of register. Selvedges are sound, both end finishes are straight, and the fringe has never been reduced.