9'6" x 13' Persian Kashan Rug | Red Floral Medallion | 1980s Shark Tank Design

When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor, and this 9'6" x 13' piece is the same classic formula: a deep madder red field, a near-black navy lobed medallion and ivory spandrels in all 4 corners, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation during the 1980s. It has been owned and lightly walked, and it presents in excellent order, with even pile, straight sides and original ends intact. Every authentic Persian Kashan rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity, and at this scale it sits squarely with the room size 10x13 Persian rugs that carry a full seating group without exposing the floor.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is the textbook Kashan medallion and corner layout, worked entirely in curved line. At center sits an ivory cartouche holding an 8 petal rosette in sky blue and teal, ringed by a stepped navy medallion that throws pendant palmettes north and south along the long axis. Around it the red field is filled edge to edge with a scrolling vine of palmettes, lotus blossoms and serrated leaves, dense enough that no two square inches repeat exactly. The 4 corner spandrels are navy with ivory lobed cartouches and their own vine work, so the field reads as an oval cut from a larger garden. The main border is a navy ground of alternating palmettes and vases linked by a continuous meander, flanked on both sides by narrow guard stripes of small ivory and soft blue blossoms, with an outer band of red finishing the edge.

Color Palette

The field is a true madder red that leans slightly raspberry under showroom light and brightens toward coral where the pile lies away from you, the usual wool luster of good Kashan fleece rather than any change in dye. Against it the medallion ground and the main border run a navy so deep it reads almost black until the light hits the vine work. The drawing itself is where the color lives: ivory and cream outline every cartouche, sky blue and teal fill the rosettes, gold and soft yellow light up the serrated leaves, and dusty rose, salmon and a quiet sage green run through the smaller blossoms. The guard stripes carry pale blue and ivory, which keeps the red and navy from meeting abruptly and gives the border its layered look in the close-up photographs.

Origin and Weaving Quality

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its weavers inherited the Safavid court workshop tradition of curved drawing and formal medallion layout. The town is known for soft, lustrous local wool and for a disciplined cotton foundation, which together give a rug that holds its shape over decades while the pile picks up light. This 1980s example shows that work clearly: the 3/8" wool pile is cut evenly, the knotting is tight and regular enough to carry fine floral detail at small scale, and the back shown with the tape measure makes the row count easy to read against the inch marks. The ends and selvages were finished by the same hand that wove the field, and after 40 years the wool has mellowed into the soft, slightly glazed surface that collectors look for in a Kashan of this generation.