9'8" x 12'11" Persian Kashan Rug | Red Field with Navy Lobed Medallion | Excellent Condition

This is the classical Kashan formula worked at full room scale: a deep red field, a navy lobed medallion, ivory floral spandrels and a navy main border, all hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation. At 9'8" x 12'11" it covers a standard living room wall to wall and still leaves a clean margin of floor on all 4 sides, which is why 10x13 Persian Kashan rugs remain the most requested large format we carry. The pile measures 3/8" and is even from end to end with no low spots, the selvedges are intact and the ivory cotton fringe is full and original, as shown in the back photograph alongside the ruler. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials, knotting and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a lobed navy medallion built around an ivory and sage cartouche filled with mirrored palmettes and a small 8 petal rosette at the exact midpoint. Above and below it, 2 navy pendants reach into the field like finials. The field itself is not left open: it carries a dense all over arrangement of curling arabesque vines, serrated leaves, palmettes and small blossoms that radiate out from the medallion in a scalloped halo, a drawing habit that tells you the design was worked from a proper cartoon rather than improvised. The 4 corners repeat the medallion's vocabulary in quarter form, each spandrel set on navy with an ivory cloud band edge. The main border runs a navy ground with alternating red and ivory palmettes joined by a continuous vine, flanked by a light blue guard stripe and a narrow ivory vine stripe on each side, so the eye reads 5 distinct bands from field to fringe. More classical patterns of this type sit in our all over floral rug selection.

Color: Deep Red, Inky Navy and Ivory

The field is a saturated madder red that reads crimson in daylight and leans slightly toward raspberry in the close-up photographs, warm rather than orange, with the natural tonal breathing you expect from wool dyed in batches. Against it the navy is almost inky, dark enough at a distance to read as near black in the border and the medallion, which is exactly what gives the ivory drawing its snap. The ivory itself is not a single tone: the spandrels and the medallion interior move through cream, oatmeal and a soft sage green, and the pale celadon and sage leaves scattered through the field cool the red just enough to keep it from going heavy. Secondary notes include light sky blue in the guard stripes, rose pink in the border palmettes, caramel brown in the vine work and small accents of true blue in the field blossoms. Buyers working around mahogany, walnut or a navy sofa tend to shortlist rugs from the red and burgundy Persian rugs group, and this one is a textbook example of that palette.

Kashan: Central Persia's Court Workshop Tradition

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that produced some of the most copied rug designs in the world. The town's reputation rests on 3 things: soft lustrous local wool that takes dye deeply and polishes with use, careful symmetrical drawing, and the red field with navy lobed medallion and ivory spandrels formula seen here, which has become shorthand for a formal Persian rug everywhere. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor, which is why so many buyers recognize this look before they can name it. Weavers here use the symmetrical knot on a cotton foundation, beaten down firmly so the back stays tight and the pile wears slowly, and the 3/8" clip on this piece keeps the fine vine work legible rather than blurring it. Our Persian Kashan rugs guide covers the town's workshops, wool and dye traditions in more detail.