9'8" x 13'3" Persian Kashan Rug | Navy Floral Field with Red Medallion | Signed, 1980s

This is the town formula done properly: a deep navy ground, a madder red lobed medallion and a field of flowering vines drawn small enough that you keep finding new blossoms in it. Woven in the 1980s and signed in a small cartouche at one end, it belongs to the classic school of Persian Kashan rugs, with a cotton foundation, a short 3/8" fine wool pile and the soft surface sheen that Kashan wool develops. At 9'8" x 13'3" it sits squarely in the most useful of the 10x13 Persian rugs footprints, large enough to carry all four legs of a full seating group or a 10 seat table. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, material and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the Safavid inheritance that Kashan weavers have kept intact: a pointed lobed medallion at dead center, a small ivory cartouche inside it holding a turquoise 8 petal rosette, matching pendants above and below, and quarter medallions repeated in the 4 corners as red spandrels. Around that core the navy field is filled edge to edge with curving vine work, palmettes, rosettes, tulip sprays and slender serrated leaves, all drawn in the fluid curvilinear line that only a high knot count allows. Nothing is angular here; the stems bend and cross rather than step. The main border carries alternating palmettes and blossom heads on a dark ground, framed by turquoise minor borders of running vine and a fine outer stripe, so the borders read as three distinct bands rather than one heavy edge. At one end, sitting inside the guard border, is the woven signature cartouche that marks this as a workshop piece rather than an anonymous commercial weave.

Color: Midnight Navy, Madder Red and Turquoise

The field is a true midnight navy, dark enough to read almost black in low light and to sit calmly under furniture, which is what makes the rest of the palette work so hard. Against it the medallion and spandrels are a clear madder red, warm rather than orange, outlined in golden ivory so the shapes stay crisp from across the room. Inside the flowers you get the full Kashan range in miniature: ivory and cream petals, soft rose and salmon pink, saffron gold, olive and grass green leaves, and repeated flashes of turquoise that also run through the minor borders and give the whole rug its lift. Ivory appears again in the corner grounds, brightening the perimeter. The overall impression is deep and formal from a distance and surprisingly colorful up close, which is exactly why navy Kashans work in rooms with wood floors, dark cabinetry or a lot of cream upholstery.

Kashan: Central Persia and the Weave

Kashan lies in central Persia, north of Isfahan on the edge of the desert, and its looms trace back to the Safavid court workshops that produced some of the greatest carpets ever made. The modern town weave keeps the same virtues: a tight cotton warp and weft, a close symmetrical knot, a deliberately short clipped pile that holds fine floral drawing, and soft lustrous local wool that takes dye beautifully and polishes with use. Turn this one over and the knotting is even and dense across the whole 9'8" x 13'3" field, with straight selvedges and flat, square corners, the signs of a well tensioned loom and an experienced weaver. Kashan is also the design most Americans have seen without knowing its name: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor.