9'9" x 13'2" Persian Kashan Rug | Navy Floral Field, Ivory Medallion | Signed Border Cartouche

This is the Kashan formula turned inside out: instead of the usual red ground, the weaver laid the entire field in deep navy and saved the madder red for the medallion and the wide main border, so the rug reads dark and quiet from across the room and then opens into hundreds of small flowers as you walk toward it. It measures 9'9" x 13'2", a true room size that covers a large seating group without crowding the walls, and it is hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a low, even, tightly packed pile. One detail sets this piece apart from the ordinary run of Persian Kashan rugs: a small woven cartouche sits in the border, the weaver's own signature panel, knotted in ivory and green against the red ground and visible in the close-up photograph. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the classic Kashan architecture. A lobed red medallion sits dead center, cusped and pointed at both ends, with an ivory core wrapped around a sky blue rosette of 8 petals. Fine ivory outlines trace every lobe and finish in curling tendrils at each shoulder, and long pendant finials run out from the top and bottom of the medallion into the field. Around all of it the navy ground is filled edge to edge with an all over floral system: palmettes, serrated leaves, rosettes and small carnations linked by a thin arabesque vine that never breaks. The 4 corners carry red spandrels drawn as quarter sections of the medallion, each anchored by an ivory cartouche of scrolling vine. The main border repeats a turtle palmette and rosette rhythm on red, flanked on both sides by light blue guard stripes of reciprocal vine and a final narrow meander at the outer edge. The mirror symmetry holds on both axes, which is the mark of a cartoon drawn properly rather than improvised at the loom.

The Navy and Madder Red Palette

The field is a deep indigo navy that shifts toward midnight where the pile lies one way and toward a softer ink blue where it lies the other, the natural abrash of hand-dyed wool rather than any flaw. Against it the main border and the medallion are a warm madder red, slightly brick rather than crimson, which keeps the rug from reading cold. The light blue guard borders are the surprise element here, a clear sky tone that lifts the whole composition and picks up the same blue used in the rosette at the center of the medallion. Ivory does the outlining work throughout, in the medallion core, the spandrel cartouches and the vine tracery of the borders, and it is what makes the pattern legible at a distance. Green appears sparingly and deliberately, as leafwork through the field and as the ground of the small signature cartouche. Scattered accents of rose pink, soft gold and a little rust sit inside the flower heads. The overall effect is formal and deep rather than bright, which is why navy Kashans sit so comfortably under dark wood furniture and against warm plaster or paneled walls.

Kashan: Court Weaving in Central Persia

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan on the edge of the desert, and it has been a weaving city since the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century. That inheritance shows in two things: the discipline of the drawing, with its curved lines and closed floral system, and the wool itself, which is soft, lustrous and takes dye deeply. City weavers in Kashan work on a cotton warp and weft with an asymmetric knot, packing the rows tight enough to render a curved palmette cleanly, and the result is a rug that keeps its pattern crisp for generations of use. Kashan is also the design most Americans have already seen without knowing its name: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. At 9'9" x 13'2" this piece falls squarely into the most useful room size there is, and buyers shopping 10x13 Persian rugs will find few in this format that carry a weaver's signature cartouche in the border.