9'7" x 13'4" Persian Kashan Rug | Light Green Field, Ivory Medallion | Signed Cartouche

Most Kashans come to market on a red or navy ground, which is exactly why this one stops people. The field is a pale celadon green, cool and slightly silvery, and against it the ivory medallion and chestnut spandrels read almost like a watercolor. It measures 9'7" x 13'4", a true room size that lands in the 10x13 Persian rug range, and it is signed: a small woven cartouche sits in the upper border, the weaver's own mark rather than a later addition. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, the handle is supple, and the condition is excellent throughout. Persian Kashan rugs of this scale and drawing are the backbone of a traditional room, and every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials and construction.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Kashan formula executed with unusual delicacy. A lobed central medallion anchors the field, built in concentric rings around an 8 petal rosette and finished top and bottom with slender pendants that taper into curling leaf tips. Four spandrels mirror the medallion in the corners, each filled with the same scrolling arabesque so the geometry closes cleanly. Between them the field runs as a continuous all over vine: palmettes, split leaves, small cypress-like sprays and dozens of tiny blossoms, all drawn on a curved line that never breaks. The main border carries an alternating palmette and rosette sequence linked by a thin vine, flanked by several guard stripes of reciprocal trefoils and running flowerheads. Close up, the third photo shows how much detail is packed into the medallion field alone, with layered outlines in navy, olive and brick that give the drawing depth rather than flatness. The signature cartouche breaks the top border, a workshop convention that marks this as a named piece rather than an anonymous commercial weave.

A Light Green Field With Ivory and Chestnut

The ground color is the whole story here. It is a pale light green with an ivory cast, closer to celadon or sea glass than to sage, and it shifts with the light: cooler and greyer in daylight, warmer and creamier under lamps. The medallion and spandrels are worked in ivory and a soft taupe-chestnut that reads almost blush at the edges, while the main border sits in a deeper chestnut brown that frames the pale field without shouting. Detail work supplies the accents, and it is worth looking at closely: sapphire and pale sky blue in the leaf tips and outlines, deep navy for the drawing lines, small touches of olive green, brick red, saffron gold and true white in the flowerheads. The overall effect is genuinely neutral at a distance, so the rug carries a room without dictating its palette, then rewards you with color the moment you stand over it. It sits naturally with cream plaster, walnut and oak furniture, brass, and blue or muted green upholstery.

Kashan: Central Persia and the Court Tradition

Kashan lies in central Persia, north of Isfahan on the edge of the desert, and its weaving pedigree runs straight back to the Safavid court workshops. The town's reputation rests on two things: soft, lustrous local wool that takes dye beautifully and holds a low even pile, and a disciplined drawing tradition in which the medallion, pendants and spandrels are all plotted from the same cartoon so nothing drifts out of register. That discipline is visible across the full 13'4" length of this piece, where the vine repeats stay true from end to end. Kashan is also the most recognizable Persian design in America, the one you have seen a hundred times without naming it. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This example is a signed workshop weave on a cotton foundation, tightly knotted, with the wool pile still standing full and even, the kind of rug that has decades of service left in it.