9'2" x 12' Persian Kashan Rug | Navy Blue Floral Medallion | Signed Workshop Piece, 1980s

Weavers in central Persia have been repeating this medallion formula for four centuries, and this 9'2" x 12' piece from the 1980s is a reminder that nobody has improved on it. The pile is full and even from fringe to fringe, the navy ground has kept its depth rather than going grey, and the curved drawing holds its line cleanly through all 4 corners. It carries a woven signature, which on a piece this size tells you a named workshop stood behind the loom instead of an anonymous village weaver. If you want the background on what separates a proper Persian Kashan rug from the imitations, our guide covers it, and among 9x12 Persian rugs a signed navy Kashan in this condition is not a common find. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

At the center sits a lobed ivory medallion holding a soft blue cartouche and a single rosette at dead center, ringed by a stepped red surround with tulip and palmette heads worked into the lobes. Pendant finials drop from the top and bottom of the medallion along the long axis, and the same red, ivory and blue vocabulary reappears in the 4 corner spandrels, each one filled with curling arabesque vine and ivory scrollwork. The navy field between them is not left quiet: it is covered edge to edge with a fine allover lattice of flowering vine, serrated leaves, rosettes, small palmettes and sprays of pink and peach blossom, all drawn symmetrically about both axes. The wide main border runs a classic turtle palmette and rosette scroll on red, framed on either side by soft blue guard stripes carrying ivory vine outlined in saffron, with narrow reciprocal stripes closing the composition at the outer edge.

A Navy Field Lit by Red, Ivory and Peach

The field is a deep midnight navy that reads almost blue-black in low light and opens up to a clear indigo where daylight catches the pile, which is what makes the rest of the palette work. Against it the madder red of the border and medallion surround reads warm and slightly cherry rather than brick, and the ivory of the medallion ground and the border vine supplies the contrast that keeps a dark field from going heavy. The secondary colors are where the wool quality shows: soft powder blue in the guard stripes and flower heads, pale peach and blush pink in the blossoms, beige and camel in the leafwork, saffron gold on the outlines, and small touches of brown and sage green in the vines. Nothing is muddy and nothing is harsh, and the same tones repeat consistently from one end of the field to the other, which is the sign of well dyed wool spun in a single batch.

Kashan: The Town and the Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its workshops trace their drawing straight back to the Safavid court tradition. The town is known for soft, lustrous local wool and for the classic formula of a lobed medallion with matching spandrels, usually on red; this weaver inverted it onto navy, which is the rarer and more collectible of the two colorways. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor, which is why the look is so familiar even to people who have never bought a handmade rug. Structurally this one is built the way Kashan builds: a cotton foundation, a dense, tightly packed knot that gives the back a fine even grain, and a low, firm pile that takes furniture without crushing. The signature confirms workshop production, and the curvilinear vine work, especially the way the border scroll keeps its rhythm across nearly 12 feet, only happens at a knot count that a village loom cannot reach.