9'11" x 13'9" Persian Kashan Rug | Navy Floral Field, Red Lobed Medallion | Excellent Condition

This is the classic room-size format that made Persian Kashan rugs the benchmark for formal floors: a deep navy blue field packed with drawn flowers, a red lobed medallion at dead center, and a wide red main border that frames the whole composition. It measures 9'11" x 13'9", which sits squarely in the 10x14 Persian rug class, so it covers a full seating group with pile to spare under the furniture legs. The pile is hand-knotted wool at 3/8", low and even across all 136 square feet, on a cotton foundation that keeps the rug lying flat and square. Condition is excellent, the drawing is crisp from selvage to selvage, and the piece ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a hand-knotted rug made in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a stepped, lobed medallion in red, built up in layers: an ivory inner cartouche, a light blue 8 petal rosette at the core, and a pendant finial pointing to each end of the field. Around it the navy ground is not left open for a moment. It is filled with a dense all over lattice of palmettes, carnations, lotus blossoms and small rosettes carried on thin scrolling vines, with the flowers drawn individually rather than stamped out in repeats. The 4 corners carry red spandrels edged in ivory, which is the detail that gives the field its oval reading in the full view. The border system runs wide: a red main border of alternating palmettes and arabesque vine, flanked by narrow light blue and ivory guard stripes and a fine outer meander, so the eye is walked in from the edge toward the medallion in three clear steps.

Color in Detail

The field is a true dark navy blue, close to ink in shadow and opening to a softer indigo where the light crosses the pile. Against it the flowers read in brick red, rose pink, ivory, sky blue and a small amount of mustard gold, with pale green leaves threaded through the vine work. The medallion and the border share the same warm tomato red, a shade or two lighter than the reds inside the field, which is what lets the medallion float clear of its surroundings instead of blending into it. Ivory does the quiet work here: it outlines the medallion, picks out the corner spandrels, and runs as a hairline guard stripe, so there is a bright line between every major block of color. Light blue in the guard stripes and the inner medallion cools the whole palette down, and the overall effect in a room is deep and jewel-toned rather than bright, a rug that anchors dark wood, brass and leather without fighting them.

Kashan Origin and Weave

Kashan lies in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its workshops trace their drawing tradition straight back to the Safavid court looms. The town's advantage was always material and discipline: soft lustrous local wool that takes dye deeply and holds a sheen, a cotton foundation woven tight enough to keep a large rug true, and a house formula (deep field, lobed central medallion, spandreled corners, wide floral border) repeated for generations until the proportions became second nature. This rug follows that formula in its navy variant rather than the more common red-field version, which makes it the harder of the two to find at room size. The back shows a fine, regular knot line with no slack or wave, and the low clipped pile is exactly how Kashan weavers finish a piece so the drawing stays legible. Kashan is also the rug most Americans have seen without knowing it: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor.