10'1"x13'3" Persian Kashan Rug | Classic Red Field Navy Medallion | The Shark Tank Rug | 200-220 KPSI

Most people have seen this rug without ever knowing what it was. Put on an episode of Shark Tank and look at the floor the entrepreneurs walk across: a deep red persian kashan rug with a navy medallion, the same design in front of you here. This one is 10'1" by 13'3", hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation at 200 to 220 knots per square inch, and it has never been on a floor. Everything about it is still tight: full pile, straight sides, clean fringe, the colors as strong at one end as the other. At this 10x13 room size it will hold a sofa and both flanking chairs with every leg on the wool in a living room, or sit under a long table in the dining room with enough margin left that pushed-back chairs never catch the edge. A certificate of authenticity comes with it.

Design and Motifs

The center medallion is navy, lobed, with small stepped hooks running around its outline and a pendant finial reaching out from the top and bottom into the red. Inside sits an ivory cartouche holding a light blue diamond with a four petal rosette at its heart, and the navy around that fills with little rosettes, serrated leaves and curling cloudbands. The field is not left open the way a Sarough often is. It is packed edge to edge with long stemmed bouquets, eight petal star rosettes, tulip buds, narrow pointed leaves and hair-thin vines that tie one motif into the next, so the eye never finds a resting spot. Four ivory spandrels close the corners with palmettes and their own vinework, and they mirror each other exactly. Then seven bands of border: a broad navy main band alternating rosettes with paired palmettes on an ivory meander, light blue guard stripes of small blossoms on either side, and narrow reciprocal edging holding the whole thing in. Look at the corners where the border turns. On a lesser rug that is where the pattern breaks. Here it resolves cleanly on all four.

Colors in Detail

The red is a true madder, deep and slightly cool, nearer ripe cherry than brick or orange, and it stays that strong across all thirteen feet with no banding. The medallion and the main border are a very dark indigo navy that goes almost black in evening light, and that jump from red to near-black is where the rug gets its formal weight. The ivory is warm, a cream rather than a white, so the spandrels and all the fine outlining glow instead of glaring. Between those three the weaver worked in a clear mid light blue through the guard stripes and the medallion center, a soft dusty rose in the smaller flowerheads, a muted gold that outlines many of the palmettes and pulls your eye across the field, a deeper burgundy in the border blossoms, and thin strokes of olive and sage green in the leaves and stems. A little soft apricot turns up in the border rosettes if you look for it. Nothing here is muddy and nothing is neon, which is the difference between good vegetal-toned dyes and the harsh reds you see on cheap copies of this design.

Origin and Weaving

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan at the edge of the desert, and it has been weaving without interruption longer than almost any other town in the country, going back to the Safavid court workshops. Its name was built on two things: unusually soft, lustrous local wool, and this exact medallion layout, which Kashan did so well that the rest of the world simply copied it. At 200 to 220 knots per square inch on a cotton foundation the weave is fine enough to carry all that floral detail without blurring it, and heavy enough that the rug lies flat from the day you unroll it and stays flat. Turn this one over and the drawing on the back is as sharp as the front, which is the honest test. To see what else we have in the same size, browse our 10x13 Persian Kashan rugs. As a direct importer, Rugs.net offers free shipping and free returns to all 50 states, same-day refunds, and our price beat guarantee.