9'8" x 13' Persian Kashan Rug | Red Field with Cobalt Blue Medallion | Excellent Condition

This is the Kashan formula done properly: a deep tomato red field, a cobalt and ivory medallion dropped dead centre, and a navy border that frames the whole thing like a picture. At 9'8" x 13" the drawing has room to breathe, and the weaver used it, filling every inch of the open ground with small scrolling vines rather than leaving it flat. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, still full and even edge to edge, with clean selvedges and original fringe. Condition is excellent, which on a rug of this age and scale is the exception rather than the rule. You can read more in our Persian Kashan rugs guide, and if you are shopping the format specifically, see our other 10x13 Persian rugs. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The centre carries a stepped, lobed medallion built in layers: an ivory inner cartouche holding a cobalt rosette, a navy ring of palmettes around it, and a notched white outline that steps outward in small square returns. Pendants rise and fall from the top and bottom points, each one a miniature of the medallion itself. The red field around it is covered in a dense curvilinear lattice of palmettes, serrated leaves, 8 petal rosettes and tiny white blossoms, all connected by hairline vines that never break rhythm. The 4 corner spandrels are drawn in navy with ivory cloudband edges and repeat the field vocabulary at larger scale. The main border is a navy turtle palmette and vine meander, flanked by light blue guard stripes carrying a running rosette chain, with narrow ivory minor guards separating each band. The whole composition mirrors cleanly on both axes, which is the mark of a cartoon drawn by a trained designer rather than copied freehand.

A Study in Red, Cobalt and Ivory

The field reads as a warm tomato red with a slight brick undertone, deepening toward crimson where the pile catches light at an angle. Against it the blues do all the work: a saturated cobalt in the medallion centre and the larger rosettes, a dark navy approaching indigo in the main border and spandrels, and a soft powder blue in the guard stripes that lightens the frame and keeps the navy from going heavy. Ivory appears as outline rather than mass, tracing the medallion, the cloudband corners and the thin minor guards, which is what gives the pattern its crispness from across a room. Scattered through the field are olive and sage greens in the leaves, a dusty rose in the smaller blossoms, and small notes of gold and camel in the vinework. It is a classic cool-over-warm palette, and it sits comfortably with mahogany, walnut and dark leather.

Kashan: Central Persia and the Court Workshop Tradition

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its weaving goes back to the Safavid court workshops. The town built its reputation on soft, lustrous local wool and on one instantly recognisable formula: red field, lobed blue medallion, ivory spandrels, navy border. That consistency is why a Kashan is the rug most people picture when they picture a Persian rug. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. Technically, Kashan weavers work on a cotton warp and weft with an asymmetric knot, giving the tight, upright pile you can see in the close-up photographs, where the knot rows stay straight and the pattern outlines hold their shape without blurring. A piece at 9'8" x 13' required a full-size loom and months of continuous work from a team, and the even clip and unbroken pattern registration across nearly 13 feet of length tell you the weavers stayed with it from start to finish.