9'3" x 12'8" Persian Kerman Rug | Borderless Open Field with Floral Medallion | 1970s Full Pile

Most room-size Persian rugs spend half their wool on borders. This one spends almost none. Woven in Kerman in the 1970s, the 9'3" x 12'8" piece runs as a single open raspberry red field, framed only by two facing corner bouquets and anchored by one round floral medallion in the center. It is a confident, almost modern piece of drawing, and it is the reason these mid-century Kermans still read so well in contemporary rooms. The pile is a full 3/8" of soft wool on a cotton foundation, with the sheen that Kerman wool is known for, and the rug arrives with our certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction. Among large Persian rugs of this footprint, borderless examples in this condition are not common.

Design and Motifs

The layout is a classic Kerman cornerless composition: one round medallion, 2 diagonally opposed corner sprays, and nothing else. The medallion is built from a tight rosette center ringed by pink cabbage roses, indigo blossoms, sage and olive leaf work, and delicate curling tendrils that break the outline into a soft halo rather than a hard edge. The corner sprays are drawn like cut garden bouquets, with full-blown roses, tulips, butterflies, palmettes and a large navy boteh among the leaves, each stem tapering into a fine turquoise vine that trails out onto the empty ground. Because there is no border to contain them, the bouquets appear to grow inward from the corners, and the eye travels across a wide expanse of plain wool before it reaches the medallion. The drawing is curvilinear throughout, the scale is generous, and the negative space does the heavy lifting.

A Raspberry Red Field with Jewel-Toned Flowers

The field is a deep raspberry red that leans toward magenta under daylight and darkens to a wine tone in shadow, with the gentle abrash of a hand-dyed wool lot rather than a flat machine color. Against it, the floral work is deliberately cooler and lighter: strong indigo and royal blue roses, bright turquoise buds, sage, olive and forest green leaves, warm gold and honey stems, ivory and cream petals, and salmon pink blossoms that pick up the field without repeating it. The result is an unusual, high-contrast palette that sits between traditional and Deco. Buyers comparing red and burgundy Persian rugs should note how much brighter this pink-leaning red is than the brick and rust tones of village weaving, which is exactly what makes it work with grey, charcoal and natural wood interiors.

Kerman: Weaving in Southeast Persia

Kerman sits in the high desert of southeast Persia and has been a workshop town for centuries, known for finely spun local wool, curvilinear cartoon drawing and floral design rather than geometry. The asymmetric knot on a cotton foundation lets Kerman weavers turn a rose petal or a vine curl smoothly, which is precisely what this rug's medallion and corner bouquets depend on. From the 1930s onward Kerman workshops built entire programs around open-field and reduced-border layouts, and this 1970s example belongs to that line: full 3/8" pile, even weave, straight sides, clean ivory fringe and no restoration. If you want to understand how weave, wool and palette place a piece in a decade, our guide on how to date an Oriental rug covers the same signals we used here.