9'10" x 14'3" Persian Kashan Rug | Red Floral Field, Navy Medallion | Signed Workshop Cartouche

A signed weaving is a workshop weaving, and the small cartouche set into the top border of this rug tells you the loom that made it was proud enough to put a name on the work. It is a classic of the type: a deep red field carrying a dense all-over floral vine, a navy lobed medallion drawn with ivory arabesques, and a wide navy border of palmettes and rosettes. At 9'10" x 14'3" it sits squarely in the 10x14 Persian rug size that formal living rooms and long dining rooms ask for, with the pile still full and even across the whole surface. Like every rug we sell, it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a hand-knotted Persian Kashan rug, wool pile on a cotton foundation.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the full Kashan formula without shortcuts. At the center sits a lobed navy medallion, filled with ivory arabesque scrollwork and built around a sky blue rosette core, with a pointed pendant finial reaching out at each end into the field. The field itself is never left empty: a continuous vine system runs corner to corner carrying palmettes, 8 petal rosettes, small cypress and leaf forms, and tiny buds that fill the ground between the larger blossoms. The 4 corners carry ivory spandrels drawn with their own scrolling vine and blossom, which frames the red field and pulls the eye back to the medallion. The main border is navy, set with alternating palmettes and rosettes joined by a continuous meander, and it is flanked on both sides by narrow guard stripes in sky blue and ivory with a small repeating flowerhead. The woven cartouche sits in the upper main border, outlined against green, ivory and red grounds, the mark of the workshop rather than part of the pattern.

A Deep Madder Red Field Against Navy and Ivory

The field is a deep madder red, warm rather than orange, and it stays consistent from end to end with no sudden shift in tone. Against it the border reads as a very dark navy, close to aubergine where the light falls off, which gives the rug its heavy frame and makes the red look richer by contrast. Inside the floral work the palette opens up: ivory and cream for the arabesques and spandrels, a clear sky blue used for rosette centers and small leaves, soft rose and salmon in the palmettes, and a saffron gold that lights up the larger blossoms scattered through the field. There is a touch of sage green in the signature cartouche and in a few leaf forms. The medallion is the coolest point of the whole rug, ivory and sky blue at the center, so it reads clearly from across a room while the red ground and navy border carry the weight underfoot.

Kashan: Central Persia and the Court Workshop Tradition

Kashan sits 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 town's advantage was always material and discipline: soft lustrous local wool that takes dye deeply and holds a sheen, and a workshop culture that kept to the classic formula of red field, navy lobed medallion and ivory spandrels rather than chasing novelty. That formula is why the design is so familiar even to people who have never bought a rug. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. The back of this piece, shown against a ruler, gives you the honest measure of the weave: fine, tight, even rows with the pattern legible knot by knot, which is what allows the curved vine and the arabesque tracery on the front to stay crisp at this scale. Add the signed cartouche and you are looking at a workshop piece rather than a village copy of one.