9'4" x 12'8" Persian Kashan Rug | Navy Floral Medallion Field | 1980s, Excellent Condition

This is the version of the Kashan that collectors quietly prefer: navy ground instead of the usual red, with the entire field given over to a dense floral lattice and a single ivory medallion floating at the center. It was woven in the 1980s, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation, and after four decades the pile is still even from end to end with the drawing crisp in every corner. At 9'4" x 12'8" it covers a standard 10 by 13 foot floor plan properly, with room for a full seating group or a long table and chairs to sit inside the border rather than on top of it. If you have been reading about Persian Kashan rugs and want a piece with age and a less common palette, this is it. A certificate of authenticity ships with the rug, documenting origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Kashan formula, drawn with real discipline. A small lobed medallion in ivory and soft blue holds a central rosette, and from it two long pendants reach up and down the field, each finishing in a palmette outlined in rust. Around the medallion the navy ground is filled with a continuous vine system: curling arabesques, split leaves, 8 petal rosettes and shah abbas palmettes that repeat in mirrored pairs rather than a mechanical grid, so the eye keeps finding new turns in the drawing. The 4 corner spandrels are laid in on the same rust red as the border, which pulls the composition tight and makes the navy field read as a framed panel. The main border carries alternating palmettes and cypress-like leaf forms on rust red, flanked by ivory guard stripes with a running floral meander and a narrow navy band of angular rosettes. Four stripes on each side, all of them drawn on the curve, which is what separates a city Kashan from village work using the same motifs.

Color Palette

The field is a deep navy blue that leans toward aubergine where the light hits it at an angle, dark enough to make the floral work glow rather than compete with it. Against that the vines are worked in brick and rust red, warm apricot, tan and clean ivory, with real green appearing in the leaves and in occasional small rosettes, a color Kashan weavers used sparingly and always to good effect. The medallion is the lightest point in the rug, ivory with pale ice blue shading and a red center, and the spandrels answer it in rust. The main border is a softer brick red than the field accents, so the transition from field to border is graded rather than abrupt, and the ivory guard stripes give the whole rug a bright outline. The wool has taken the dyes with a gentle variation from row to row, the natural abrash of a 1980s hand-dyed piece, and it has mellowed the way good wool does under decades of light.

Kashan Origin and Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its workshop tradition runs back to the Safavid court looms of the 16th century. The city's advantage has always been its wool, soft and lustrous, which is why a Kashan keeps a sheen on the surface long after other rugs have gone flat. That reputation is also why the design is so familiar to American eyes: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This example is a solid city weave, tightly knotted on a cotton warp with a compact back and straight selvages, the sort of construction that takes traffic for generations. Being able to place it in the 1980s comes from the palette, the drawing and the handle together, the same reading explained in our guide on how to date an Oriental rug, and it puts this piece comfortably inside the range of large Persian rugs that are becoming harder to find in original condition.