9'7" x 12'9" Persian Kashan Rug | Berry Red Floral Medallion | 1980s Wool, Excellent Condition

A berry red Kashan of this scale does not turn up often, and this one is as sound as the day it left the loom. Woven in central Persia in the 1980's, the 9'7" x 12'9" format sits squarely in the 10x13 Persian rugs group that buyers reach for when a great room or formal dining room needs to be covered properly rather than decorated in the middle. The pile is hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation, still full and even from end to end, with clean ivory fringes and tight original selvages visible in the folded corner shot. Pile depth, border drawing and color saturation all read excellent, with no repairs, no thin areas and no reweaving. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a round ivory and sand medallion built around a small blue star rosette, with 8 petal blossoms and curling split leaves radiating out to a scalloped edge. That medallion floats on a navy cushion whose outline is drawn as a lobed frame rather than a hard circle, so the eye reads one continuous shape. The field itself never rests: paired arabesque vines carry palmettes, serrated leaves, boteh forms and tiny ivory rosettes across the whole surface, and the 4 corners repeat the navy ground of the medallion as deep spandrels filled with the same vocabulary at a larger scale. Border work runs 5 bands deep, a wide navy main border of pink and ivory palmettes linked by scrolling vine, flanked by slate blue guard bands of reciprocal ivory tracery and finished with narrow striped outer stripes. The symmetry is workshop symmetry, drawn from a cartoon and followed closely, which is why the medallion sits dead center across nearly 13 feet of length.

Color Palette

The field is a saturated berry red that lifts toward rose and raspberry where the light catches the wool, one of the more collectible readings among red and burgundy Persian rugs because it carries pink without going pastel. Against it the borders and spandrels go almost black-navy, which is what gives the whole rug its contrast and depth. Inside that navy sit the cooler notes: slate blue and sky blue in the guard bands and in the medallion core, soft olive and pine green in the leaves, mustard gold in small blossoms, and a warm ivory that outlines nearly every vine and keeps the dense field legible. Rose pink echoes the field inside the main border palmettes, tying the outer frame back to the center. Light brown and caramel tones appear in the medallion ground and in scattered leaf forms. The selvage is wrapped in the same berry red, and the fringes are natural ivory cotton.

Kashan Origin and Weave Quality

Kashan lies in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that set the template for the medallion-and-spandrel layout still used here. The town built its reputation on soft lustrous local wool and on disciplined curvilinear drawing, and that combination is exactly what carries a piece this size: the knot count is high enough to hold a round medallion and a flowing vine without the curves breaking into steps. Buyers recognize the formula even when they cannot name it, and when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. If you want the background on workshop grades, dyes and how the classic layout developed, our guide to Persian Kashan rugs covers it. On this example the handle is firm, the back is even, and the wool still has the slight sheen that good Kashan fleece keeps for decades.