9'7" x 12'4" Semi-Antique Persian Kashan Design Rug | Red Field All-Over Floral Medallion | Excellent Condition

A semi-antique Persian room-size piece woven in the classic Kashan manner, this 9'7" x 12'4" rug has the balance you only get from a workshop loom: a deep red field, a graphite black lobed medallion dead center, matching black corner spandrels, and an ivory guard border that frames the whole composition. The wool pile stands at 3/8", knotted on a cotton foundation, and the handle is firm and heavy without being stiff. Condition is excellent, with even pile from edge to edge, intact selvedges and original fringe. At this footprint it fills the same space as the 9x12 Persian rugs most dining and living rooms are planned around, with a little extra length to spare. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity recording size, materials, origin and design.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the full Kashan formula rather than a simplified version of it. A small 8 petal rosette sits at the heart of the medallion, cradled in a black cartouche-shaped core, which in turn sits inside a larger lobed medallion with pendant finials reaching toward both ends of the field. Around it the field is covered in a continuous all-over floral system: palmettes, lotus heads, serrated leaves and small rosettes carried on thin curving vines that never repeat in an obvious grid. The 4 corners carry black spandrels packed with large palmettes and curled leaves, and a cusped outline separates them from the red ground. The main border is black, wide, and drawn with alternating palmette and vase forms linked by an arabesque, flanked on both sides by narrow ivory guard stripes of marching flower heads and a fine reciprocal inner stripe. This is the layout that made Persian Kashan rugs the default formal rug in American homes for a century.

Color Palette: Deep Red, Graphite Black and Ivory

The field is a true deep red with a slightly cool, raspberry cast rather than a brick or orange red, and it reads with real depth because the wool takes light differently as you walk around it. Against that, the medallion, spandrels and main border are a graphite black that softens to near-charcoal in the light and shows plum and aubergine undertones where the pile turns. The florals are where the color work happens: soft sky blue and teal leaves, sage and olive green, buttery gold, warm apricot and rust, rose pink, and a clean ivory that keeps every motif legible against the dark ground. The ivory guard borders and the ivory outlining inside the spandrels give the eye a bright line to follow all the way around the rug, and the plain red outer band at the very edge closes the design off cleanly. The last photo shows the weave up close with a ruler laid across it, so you can see how tightly those colors are packed.

Kashan Design and Persian Workshop Weaving

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace straight back to the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century. The city's reputation rests on soft lustrous local wool and on exactly the formula seen here: a red field, a dark lobed medallion and ivory spandrel work, drawn from a cartoon by a designer rather than improvised at the loom. That is why the curves close properly, the pendants land on the center line and the border turns the corners without the pattern stumbling. It is also the single most recognizable Persian rug in American interiors; when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. If you want the background before you buy, our Persian Kashan rugs guide walks through the history, the weave and how to judge quality. This example is a mature piece, worked at a knot count fine enough to hold the vine scroll crisp, and with decades of settled pile it will only keep improving underfoot.