9'8" x 12'8" Persian Kashmar Rug | Midnight Blue All-Over Floral | Signed Cartouche

This is a full room-size Kashmar from the Khorasan province of northeast Persia, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a dense 3/8" pile that still stands up straight across the whole field. The drawing is an all-over floral repeat rather than a medallion layout, which is the format Kashmar workshops are known for and the reason a rug this large reads as calm instead of busy. A woven cartouche sits in the inner guard border, the mark of a named workshop piece rather than an anonymous commercial weave, and the rug is in excellent condition with even pile and clean, straight sides. At 9'8" x 12'8" it sits squarely in the 10x13 Persian rug range, the size most large living rooms and formal dining rooms need. Every rug ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The field carries a mirrored all-over lattice of curving vines, serrated saz leaves and large radiating palmettes, with smaller 8 petal rosettes, tulip heads and buds filling the spaces between. The repeat is built on a vertical axis, so the pattern reflects left to right and steps up the length of the rug without ever closing into a central medallion. The border system runs 7 bands deep: a wide brick red main border of hooked palmettes and paired leaf forms, flanked by a light blue turtle-style guard band that carries the signature cartouche, then a sequence of narrow floral and reciprocal minor stripes that frame the field cleanly. The close-up photographs show how much drawing sits inside each element, with outlined petals, fine stem work and tiny paired rosettes worked into the vine junctions.

Color Palette: Midnight Blue, Brick Red and Ivory

The ground is a deep midnight blue that photographs nearly black in the full overhead view and opens up to a true dark indigo in the detail shots. Against it the palmettes are drawn in ivory, soft sky blue and a mid slate blue, with camel and warm brown centers, muted sage green leaves and small hits of salmon and clear red at the flower hearts. The main border switches to brick red, which lifts the whole rug and keeps the dark field from closing in, and the light blue guard band around it gives a bright ring of separation between border and field. The overall effect is a cool, deep, formal palette with just enough warm red and camel to sit comfortably with wood floors and antique furniture.

Kashmar Weaving in Khorasan

Kashmar is a weaving town in Khorasan, northeast Persia, south of the provincial capital and part of the same regional tradition as Persian Mashad rugs. The town built its reputation on large-format pieces: finely drawn all-over florals and pictorial panels woven on wide looms, using the soft, long-staple Khorasan wool that takes indigo and madder so well. The back of this rug shows a tight, regular knot line with no pulling or crowding, which is what allows the vine work to curve properly at this scale. A signed workshop Kashmar in this size, with an unworn pile and intact selvages, is a piece meant to be used and kept rather than replaced.