9'9" x 13' Persian Kashan Rug | Ivory Field, Allover Floral Medallion | Semi-Antique, Excellent Condition

This is a room-filling 9'9" x 13' Persian Kashan woven in central Persia, hand-knotted on a cotton foundation with a dense 3/8" wool pile that still stands full and even edge to edge. The ivory ground is unusual for Kashan, where red fields dominate, and it changes the whole character of the piece: the drawing reads as a light, airy garden rather than a heavy formal carpet. Both ends carry clean, original ivory fringe, the selvedges are intact, and the back shows a tight, regular knot line with the pattern legible through the weave. It sits comfortably under a dining table for 8 or anchors a full seating group, and it belongs squarely in the class of large Persian rugs buyers shop when a 9x12 falls short. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

A lobed central medallion in soft blue sits over the ivory field, its inner rosette outlined in ivory and filled with small 8 petal flowerheads, and it is finished at top and bottom with pendant cartouches in taupe and navy. Around it the field is covered with an allover system of curving arabesque vines, feathered saz leaves, palmettes and small rosettes, all drawn in the curvilinear Kashan idiom where every line bends rather than steps. The 4 corner spandrels answer the medallion with the same vocabulary at reduced scale, leaving broad passages of open ivory that keep the field from feeling crowded. The main border is a camel-taupe band carrying alternating navy palmettes and rosette medallions joined by a continuous vine, and it is framed by 6 narrow guard stripes of ivory, blue and brown rosette meander, each drawn cleanly enough to hold its own detail at this scale.

The Ivory, Blue and Taupe Palette

The ground is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than to white, and it carries a faint natural variation across the width that only good wool gives. Against it the blues do most of the work: a pale powder blue in the larger flowerheads and leaf tips, a mid sky blue in the medallion outline, and a deep navy that reads almost black where it edges the palmettes and fills the border cartouches. Taupe and camel carry the main border and the medallion pendants, warming the whole field, while golden brown and a deeper chocolate brown run through the vine work and the leaf stems. Muted olive green appears in scattered leaves and vine tips, and small stabs of crimson and mustard sit at the centers of the flowerheads, just enough accent to lift the palette. It is a quiet, light scheme that works with oak and walnut floors and with cool gray or off-white walls, which is exactly why collectors chase ivory Persian rugs in this size.

Kashan: The Town and the Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its weaving goes back to the Safavid court workshops. The town built its name on soft, lustrous local wool and on disciplined curvilinear drawing, which is why Persian Kashan rugs became the default choice for formal American rooms for most of the last century. When you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This piece is honest Kashan town work: cotton warp and weft pulled tight, a firm handle, a knot count high enough to render the fine vine scrolls and the tiny guard stripe rosettes without losing them, and a pile clipped short enough to keep the drawing crisp while still feeling substantial underfoot. Kashans are built to be walked on for generations, and this one has plenty of life ahead of it.