9'9" x 13'1" Persian Kerman Rug | Faded Pink and Blue Medallion | 1970s Low Pile Vintage

Woven in southeast Persia in the 1970s, this Kerman has spent 50 years arriving at a palette nobody can dye on purpose: a soft coral pink field that has gone dusty and uneven in the best way, a denim blue medallion, and an ivory border that has quieted down to parchment. The pile is low and the weave reads clearly through it, which is exactly why pieces like this sit so flat and so calmly under furniture. At 9'9" x 13'1" it is a true room-size piece for a sofa-and-chairs grouping or a 10-seat table, and it belongs with the 10x13 Persian rugs our clients buy for open main rooms. Good and stable throughout, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is the classic Kerman formula, held open rather than crowded. A lobed blue medallion sits dead center with a plain cream core, ringed by small blossoms and finished top and bottom with slim pendant palmettes that reach out into the field. Around it the ground stays largely bare, broken only by loose bouquets of ivory and pale green flowers scattered in mirrored pairs, the kind of naturalistic floral spray Kerman workshops drew better than anyone. The 4 corners carry large ivory spandrels filled with curling vine and stylized cloudbands, and the field ends in a stepped outline rather than a hard rectangle. The wide main border is the showpiece: blue palmettes and serrated leaves linked by a continuous vine on an ivory ground, framed by narrow guard stripes of small rosettes in coral and brown.

A Faded Pink, Denim Blue and Ivory Palette

Color is the reason this rug sells itself. The field started as a madder-toned rose and has softened to a chalky salmon pink that shifts lighter toward the ends, so the ground breathes instead of sitting flat. Against it the medallion and border read in a mid denim blue, cooled by age into something closer to faded chambray than navy, with a few deeper teal accents surviving in the medallion outline. The floral work is ivory and a pale celadon green, with small touches of rust and soft apricot in the border rosettes and a warm brown outlining the guard stripes. Set against beige and cream ground tones, the whole palette lands in that pastel, sun-bleached register that works with white walls, natural linen, brass and pale oak, and it will not fight a room that already has pattern in it.

Kerman Weaving in Southeast Persia

Kerman sits in the high desert of southeast Persia and has been a commercial weaving center for centuries, known for elegant curvilinear drawing, soft local wool and a palette built on rose, ivory and blue rather than the deep reds of the central cities. Kerman weavers work on a cotton foundation with a fine, tightly packed knot, which is what lets them draw a curved petal or a scrolling vine cleanly; the pictorial and garden borders that made the town's name come out of the same discipline. This piece is a workshop rug of the 1970s, woven at the size and standard a family home was furnished with, and the way it has aged, low pile, even wear, full and stable structure, is a fair guide to the era: if you want to understand how weave, wear and dye tell you when a piece was made, our guide on how to date an Oriental rug walks through it.