9'2" x 13' Persian Kashan Rug | Signed Navy Isfahan-Style Floral Medallion | 1980s Wool

This is a signed workshop piece from the 1980s, woven in the central Persian city of Kashan and measuring 9'2" x 13'. The weaver put his name in a small ivory cartouche at the top of the field, which in Kashan practice means the loom was run by a named master rather than an anonymous village workshop. The field is a deep midnight navy carried edge to edge in fine wool on a cotton foundation, and the drawing follows the curvilinear Esfahan idiom: a small round rosette medallion at the center, a soft dish-shaped halo of ivory tracery around it, and an all-over lattice of palmettes and scrolling vines that fills every inch of ground. At 13 feet long it covers a full formal room without needing a second rug, and the pile still stands tall with no low areas, no repairs and no fading. Every rug leaves us with a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a compact 8 petal rosette in sky blue and rust, ringed by an ivory star lattice that opens outward into a broad medallion halo rather than a hard-edged lobed shape. From there the field moves into continuous all-over floral work: split-leaf arabesques, lotus palmettes, serrated saz leaves and small bud clusters linked by thin mustard vines that never break. The drawing is curved throughout with no straight lines anywhere, which is the mark of a cartoon drawn in the tradition of Isfahan rugs and executed here on a Kashan loom. Three borders frame the field: a wide sky blue main band of palmettes and reversing vine, flanked by narrow ivory and navy guard stripes with a running flowerhead meander. The corners resolve cleanly, the vine turning into each 4 corners without the pattern collapsing, which is the detail that separates a workshop rug from a copied one.

A Midnight Navy Field Lit by Ivory, Rust and Mustard

The ground is a true midnight navy, dark enough to read almost black in low light and to open into deep indigo under a lamp, which is the tone most buyers searching for navy blue Persian rugs are after. Against it the palette is warm rather than cold: ivory and soft cream carry the outlines of the flowers, mustard and old gold run the vine work, and rust to burnt orange lands in the palmette hearts with tiny points of deep red at the very centers. A pale sky blue does the heavy lifting in the main border and reappears inside the field flowers, so the eye travels from the border into the field without a jolt. There is also a quiet celadon green in the guard stripes and in parts of the signature cartouche. Wool this good takes dye unevenly by design, so the navy shows gentle tonal movement across 13 feet, which is a sign of natural fleece and hand dyeing, not a flaw.

Kashan: Court Weaving in Central Persia

Kashan sits in central Persia north of Isfahan and has been a weaving city since the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century. The town's reputation rests on two things: soft, lustrous local wool that keeps its sheen for generations, and drawing discipline inherited from the court cartoon tradition. If you want the full background on the city and its formulas, our guide to Persian Kashan rugs covers it. Most Kashan production follows the classic red field with navy medallion recipe, so a navy-ground example drawn in the Esfahan floral manner and signed by its weaver is the less common branch of the family. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor, which is how familiar this weave has become to American eyes. The back shows a tight, even knot, straight selvedges and original ivory cotton fringe, and the whole piece has been kept unused since it came off the loom.