9'6" x 12'10" Persian Kashan Rug | Ivory Beige All Over Floral Field | 1980's | Excellent Condition

Most Kashans built at this scale lean on a big lobed medallion to carry the room. This one does not. The weaver filled all 9'6" x 12'10" with a continuous all over floral lattice on an ivory beige ground, which is the harder drawing job and the more usable rug, because nothing on the floor has to be centered around a single motif. It is hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation, woven in the 1980's, and the pile is still full and even from end to end with original selvages and fringes. Within our 10x13 Persian rugs this is one of the easier pieces to live with, and if you want the full background on the type before you commit, our Persian Kashan rug guide covers the weave and the workshop tradition in depth. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity identifying origin, materials and construction.

Design and Motifs

The field is a true all over composition: rounded palmettes, 8 and 10 petal rosettes, split arabesque leaves and small serrated buds linked by a thin vine that never breaks. Look at the close up images and you can see how the drawing is mirrored across both axes, so the pattern repeats cleanly but no two adjacent flower heads carry the same color combination. Larger rosettes anchor the repeat at regular intervals, each one ringed by a halo of pointed leaves, and between them the weaver dropped in tiny cypress forms and curling vine tips that keep the ground from going flat. The surround is a 3 part border system: a wide soft green main band of floral cartouches and vine scroll, flanked by two ivory guard stripes drawn with the same vocabulary at half scale, and separated by narrow gold and navy outline stripes that read as crisp pinstripes from standing height. Corners are resolved properly, with the main band pattern turning the corner rather than being cut off, which is the mark of a workshop cartoon rather than a village improvisation.

The Ivory, Green, Blue and Rust Palette

The ground is a warm ivory beige, closer to unbleached linen than to white, with a faint honey cast where the wool takes the light. Against it the weaver worked a cool palette: deep indigo navy for the flower outlines and the inner petal cups, a lighter sky blue for the leaf fills, and a soft celadon green that carries the main border and reappears inside the larger rosettes. Rust and burnt terracotta supply the warmth, concentrated in the central rosette centers and the curled leaf tips, and there is a clean brick red used sparingly at the very heart of certain blossoms. Small hits of saffron gold, rose pink and a chocolate brown appear in single flower heads, and it is those isolated accents that make the field sparkle rather than blur when you view it from across the room. Nothing is loud. The overall reading from 10 feet away is ivory and green with blue drawing, and the rust reads as a warm glow rather than a color block, which is why this piece sits comfortably with both cool grey and warm wood interiors.

Kashan: The Town and the Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its weaving pedigree runs back to the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century. The town is known for soft, lustrous local wool and for a disciplined, symmetrical drawing style, and it is far and away the most recognizable Persian city weave in American homes. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This example shows the traits that matter: a tight, regular knot across the full 12'10" length with no drift in the pattern, a firmly beaten cotton foundation visible on the folded back corner, and a moderate pile height that keeps the drawing legible instead of letting the wool swallow the fine outlines. The wool has aged into the quiet sheen that only real Kashan fleece develops, and after roughly 40 years the pile remains full with no thinning at the field centers or the traffic lines. It is a workshop piece, woven for a room, and it has been looked after.