9'6" x 13'9" Persian Kashan Rug | All-Over Mirage Blue Floral Field | Signed Cartouche

A signed city piece from central Persia, this 9'6" x 13'9" Kashan covers a full room with one uninterrupted field of deep blue. There is no central medallion. The weaver instead ran an all-over lattice of vines, palmettes and rosettes the whole 13'9" length, a layout that takes more discipline to hold in balance than a medallion does, because any drift in the repeat shows immediately. The wool has the soft surface luster that buyers of Persian Kashan rugs look for, the 3/8" pile stands full and even end to end, and the piece is in excellent, never used condition with a clean signature cartouche woven into the top border. It ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The field is built from a mirrored vinescroll that repeats in four quarters: cupped palmettes, 8 petal rosettes, long serrated saz leaves that curl back on themselves, and small budding blossoms scattered into every gap so no area of open ground is left flat. Look at the close-up and the drawing resolves into clean curved line work, with each leaf outlined in a second shade so the shape reads at a distance as well as underfoot. The main border carries an ivory and powder blue ground with alternating palmettes and rosettes strung on a continuous vine, framed by 4 narrow guard stripes on each side that step the eye in gradually. At the top center sits the small pointed cartouche with the woven Persian signature, two dark silhouettes flanking it. Across a floor this size the repeat is the whole point, and shoppers comparing 10x14 Persian rugs will notice how evenly this one holds its rhythm corner to corner.

Mirage Blue, Ivory and Rust

Mirage blue is the right name for the ground: a saturated navy blue that reads almost black in low light and opens up into true indigo when daylight crosses the pile. Against it the weaver worked ivory and cream for the larger rosettes, a chalky powder blue for the leaves and secondary blossoms, and small hits of rust and terracotta at the flower centers that keep the field from going cold. Saffron gold appears in the tiny stems and in the outer guard stripes, and there is a quiet sage green running through the border leaves. The main border flips the balance, putting ivory and light blue forward so the blue field is framed rather than swallowed, and the back photo shows the same palette on the knot heads with a soft rose tone in the ground wool. The overall effect in a room is deep and formal rather than dark, and the blue pairs easily with cream walls, walnut furniture and warm metals.

Kashan Weaving in Central Persia

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that set the standard for classical Persian drawing. The town is known for soft, lustrous local wool on a cotton foundation and for the formal city formula that most people picture when they picture a Persian rug. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. A woven cartouche like the one in the top border of this piece means a workshop rug rather than an anonymous village weave, since the master put his name on it before it came off the loom. The back tells the rest: rows are tight, straight and consistent, the knotting is fine and even across all 114" of width, and the selvedges and ivory fringe are original and sound. That combination of dense city knotting and heavy 3/8" wool pile is why a Kashan of this grade handles decades of real household traffic and still looks like this.