9'7" x 13'4" Persian Kerman Rug | Semi-Antique Red Floral Medallion | Excellent Condition

Laid out flat, this 9'7" x 13'4" Persian Kerman shows one of the more elegant readings of the Kerman formula: a deep raspberry red ground, a slender navy medallion instead of a heavy one, and a field strewn with small detached bouquets drawn in aqua, ivory and gold. The wool pile stands a full 3/8 inch with an even, soft handle, the white cotton fringe is clean at both ends, and the face is in excellent condition with no repairs or reweaves. At just under 10 feet by just over 13 it covers a formal room the way it was meant to, which places it in the most requested of our 10x13 Persian rugs group. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming the hand-knotted Persian origin, the wool pile and the cotton foundation.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a pointed navy medallion whose core is an ivory and gold cartouche built around a small 8 petal rosette, framed by scrolling gold arabesque leaves and finished top and bottom with slim floral finials. From there the drawing opens into an all-over floral field: free-standing sprays, tied bouquets and curling serrated leaves spread across the red ground in a loose lattice, each one drawn separately rather than stamped out in repeat, so the eye keeps finding new blossoms. All 4 corners carry navy spandrels edged in turquoise and laced with ivory scrollwork. The main border is navy as well, set with alternating pink cabbage roses and pale palmettes joined by a continuous vine, flanked inside and out by turquoise guard stripes and closed by a narrow red outer band. Nothing here is geometric; every line is curved, which is the point of a Kerman.

Raspberry Red Carrying a Full Pastel Palette

The field is a cool raspberry red, closer to crimson than to brick or tomato, and it holds a faint abrash that lifts and dips across the width in the floor shots, the honest signature of small hand-dyed wool lots. Against it the palette is deliberately soft: powder and aqua blue in the flower heads, ivory and cream in the leaf scrolls, a muted camel gold in the arabesques and the medallion core, sage and olive green in the foliage, and a dusty rose pink that carries the border roses. The navy of the medallion, spandrels and main border reads almost black in low light and gives the pastels something solid to sit on, while the turquoise guard stripes keep the whole frame from going heavy. For anyone shopping the broader family of red and burgundy Persian rugs, this one is the cooler, dressier end of that range rather than the warm rust end.

Kerman, Southeast Persia, and the Weave

Kerman sits in the high desert of southeast Persia and has been a weaving city since the Safavid period, long enough that its floral vocabulary of rose borders, vase and garden panels and pastel bouquet fields became a style other towns copied. Two things made it possible: the long-staple wool of the surrounding highlands, which takes dye cleanly and keeps a soft sheen, and the workshop habit of weaving from a paper design so the drawing can curve freely instead of stepping along the grid. This piece is a town workshop weave, knotted on a cotton foundation with a dense, regular back and a pile clipped to 3/8 inch, firm enough for a dining room yet still soft underfoot. The selvedges are intact, the ends are straight and the rug lies flat without waves. If you are comparing it against other Persian Kerman rugs, the things to weigh here are the clarity of the pastel dyes and the fact that a room-size Kerman this intact is getting hard to find.