9'8" x 17'5" Persian Kerman Rug | Antique Ivory Floral All-Over Field | Oversize Palace Size

Very few antique Persian rugs survive at this length, which is why a 9'8" x 17'5" Kerman in this condition is worth stopping for. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, the drawing is fully curvilinear, and the ivory field runs the entire 17'5" without a single break in the rhythm of the vinework. It reads as one continuous garden rather than a design stretched to fill a room, which is the mark of a workshop that planned the cartoon for this exact dimension. Laid out on the warehouse floor it covers the width of a large sitting room end to end, and it belongs with the other genuinely oversize Persian rugs we keep in stock rather than with standard room sizes. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

A small lobed medallion sits at the center of the field, outlined in dark navy and filled with rose and gold florets, but it is deliberately understated: the weaver let the surrounding garden do the work. Around it the ivory ground carries an all over floral design of scrolling vines, split palmettes, feathered leaves and dozens of individually drawn blossoms, each one shaded across two or three tones rather than filled flat. Look at the fourth image and you can count rosettes, bell flowers, tulips and serrated leaf sprays within a single square foot. Broad corner spandrels in the same ivory anchor the four corners of the field, and the main border is a wide rose red band of alternating palmettes and vine turns, framed by narrower teal and gold guard stripes that repeat a small flower head at even intervals. The mirrored symmetry holds precisely along both the long and short axes, which on a 17'5" cartoon takes real discipline at the loom.

A Full Ivory Field With Rose Red and Teal

The field is ivory leaning to a warm cream, closer to old parchment than to bright white, and it is the reason this rug lightens a room instead of weighing it down. Against it the palette is unusually broad: soft teal and mid blue in the leaves and larger flower heads, a dusty rose red in the blossoms, ochre and antique gold in the vine tips, sage and bottle green in the foliage, and pale pink in the smallest florets. The main border shifts to a deeper rose red that has mellowed with age into something closer to old brick, with its motifs picked out in turquoise, saffron gold and cream, and outlined in near black. The guard stripes bring in a clear petrol blue that separates border from field cleanly. Natural abrash, the gentle horizontal tone shift that comes from hand-dyed yarn, moves through the ivory ground and gives the surface life under lamplight. If you are gauging the age of a piece like this, our guide on how to date an Oriental rug explains what to read in the palette and the back.

Kerman, Southeast Persia

Kerman sits in the southeast of Persia, a desert city with a weaving tradition that never went village and never went tribal. Its workshops drew on paper, worked from full cartoons, and trained weavers to follow a curved line for years before they were trusted with a commission of this scale. That training is what you see here: flowing vines that turn without a stutter, blossoms whose outlines stay round rather than stepping, and pictorial garden detail in the border that is the Kerman signature. The wool of the region takes dye softly and holds a quiet sheen, which is why antique Kerman ivory ages toward cream rather than going dull. On the back, the knotting is even and tight enough to hold every small floret legibly, with the fringe and side cords still sound after decades on the floor. For an oversize room this is a far more sophisticated option than a heavy geometric piece, and it stands with the best of the Persian Kerman rugs we handle.