9'4" x 12'8" Persian Kashan Rug | Red Field, Indigo Medallion | Excellent Condition Wool Pile

Measuring 9'4" x 12'8", this is a town-workshop piece in the most recognizable idiom of all, the family of Persian Kashan rugs: a true red field worked solid with floral vine, a lobed indigo medallion holding the center, and ivory and indigo corner pieces squaring the composition. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, full and even across the whole surface with no thin areas and no repair, and the reverse reads tight and regular, the mark of a loom working to a drawn cartoon rather than from memory. Colors are deep and unfaded, the ivory still clean rather than yellowed, and the white cotton fringe is intact at both ends. It ships with our certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center is a lobed medallion on an indigo ground, its heart a sky blue rosette inside an ivory cartouche of split leaf and vine, with long pendant finials reaching up and down the length. Around it the red field is covered without a break: large palmettes, 8 petal rosettes, serrated saz leaves and fine curling tendrils that double back on themselves, all drawn in the curvilinear manner our records attribute to the Tabriz medallion tradition and executed here with the density Kashan looms are known for. The 4 corner spandrels repeat the ivory and indigo pairing of the medallion so the eye reads a clear frame even from across a room. Three bands make up the border: a wide indigo main band of meandering vine with alternating palmettes and rosettes, flanked by sky blue guard stripes of small scrolling blossoms and a narrow brick red reciprocal stripe, closed off by a thin ivory outer line. At 9'4" x 12'8" the field has room to show a full repeat in every direction, which is why pieces at the top of the 9x12 Persian rugs range display this kind of drawing better than smaller versions of the same design.

Red, Indigo Blue and Ivory Up Close

The ground is a warm, slightly tomato red that keeps a visible wool sheen where the light rakes across the pile, and it shifts between a deeper cochineal tone and a brighter note depending on which way the nap lies. Against it the indigo of the medallion, spandrels and main border is close to black in the shadows and opens into a clear navy in direct light. Two further blues carry most of the detail: a mid sky blue used for the rosette hearts and the outer guard stripes, and a paler duck egg blue in the vine work. Ivory does the drawing throughout, outlining every leaf and stem so the pattern stays legible over the red, and it runs from a cool white to a soft cream in the medallion interior. Secondary colors fill the flower heads: olive and moss green in the leaves, soft rose pink in the small blossoms, a few touches of saffron gold and caramel in the border rosettes, and a deeper wine red for accent petals. The overall effect is the traditional red and navy reading from a distance and a surprisingly varied palette up close, easy to live with against both dark wood and pale plaster walls.

Kashan Weaving and the Quality of This Piece

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that set the standard for curvilinear floral weaving. The town's own wool is soft and lustrous, and the classic Kashan formula of a red field, a navy lobed medallion and ivory spandrels is the single most familiar Persian look in American homes. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This example is workshop rather than village work: the knotting on the reverse is small, square and even line after line, the cotton warps are tightly spaced, the selvedges are original and firm, and the pattern is as readable from the back as from the front, which is the quickest honest test of a fine hand-knotted floral piece. The 3/8" pile has been evenly sheared so the ivory outlines stay crisp instead of blurring into the red, and a rug of this density and weight will take decades of traffic in a living room or dining room without opening up.