9'5" x 13' Persian Kashan Rug | Deep Red Floral Field, Navy Medallion | Perfect Condition

Kashan weavers have been drawing this composition for generations, and this 9'5" x 13' piece shows exactly why it never goes out of favor: a deep red field crowded with flowering vine, a navy lobed medallion sitting dead center, and ivory spandrels that open up the 4 corners. It was woven in Persia in the 2000's, and the condition is perfect, with the wool pile standing full and upright across the whole 113 inch width, no low spots, no repairs, clean selvedges and intact ivory fringe at both ends. The hand-knotted wool pile on a cotton foundation gives it the weight, flex and lay-flat body you expect from a proper persian kashan rug, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity stating origin, age, materials and construction. Among 10x13 Persian rugs this is the straightforward, formal, fully traditional choice.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is classic central Persian cabinet work. At the center sits a stepped, cusped navy medallion filled with a single large rosette in sky blue and ivory, ringed by small palmettes and curling leaves, with a slender pendant reaching toward each end of the field. Around it the red ground is covered edge to edge in a continuous scroll of vine carrying rosettes, lotus palmettes, carnations and little bunches of 5 petal blossoms, every stem terminating in a leaf rather than trailing off, which is the mark of a cartoon drawn properly rather than filled in by eye. The serrated outline of the open field creates 4 navy corner panels crowned by ivory spandrels, each one holding a heavy red palmette with split leaves. The border system runs 7 bands deep: a narrow red outer stripe, pale blue guard bands carrying small blue and red rosettes linked by vine, ivory reciprocal stripes, and a wide indigo main border alternating large palmettes with cloudband arabesques outlined in ivory and yellow. The corner resolution in the photographs is clean, with the main border pattern turning the corner correctly instead of being cut short.

Color Palette: Deep Madder Red, Indigo and Ivory

The field is a deep true red with a slight madder warmth, the kind of saturated tone that reads rich under lamplight and keeps its depth in daylight rather than going pink. Against it the medallion, corner panels and main border are a near-black indigo navy, and that contrast is what makes the medallion snap into focus from across a room. Inside both the navy and the red, the weaver worked a full secondary palette: sky blue for the guard stripes and the rosette hearts, chalky ivory for outlines, reciprocal trefoils and the spandrels, olive and grass green for the leaves and stems, golden yellow for the fine outlining that gives the motifs their crispness, soft coral and peach in the larger palmettes, and small touches of walnut brown. Nothing is abrashed or streaked, and the blues and greens repeat at regular intervals so the eye travels across the field evenly. If a strong traditional red is the anchor you are decorating around, this sits comfortably in the family of red and burgundy Persian rugs that work with dark wood, brass and cream walls.

Kashan: Central Persia and the Weave

Kashan lies in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its weaving pedigree runs back to the Safavid court workshops that produced some of the most important carpet art ever made. The town kept that tradition alive through local wool that is soft and unusually lustrous, and through the formula this rug follows to the letter: red field, navy lobed medallion, ivory spandrels, a deep floral border. It is the single most recognizable Persian design in America, and it is everywhere in the background of daily life. The Shark Tank rug: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. On the weave itself, the back photograph shows a tight, even, double wefted construction with small square knot nodes and no slack rows, which is what gives the rug its firm handle and its ability to hold fine curved line in the vine work at this scale. The pile has been clipped low enough to keep the drawing sharp while leaving enough wool to carry traffic in a dining room or living room for decades.