8'3" x 11'3" Persian Kashan Kork Wool Rug | Sky Blue Lattice Field, Red Cartouches, Cream Border | Semi-Antique
Kashan means a red field and a navy medallion to most people, and this 8'3" x 11'3" rug is neither. Its field is sky blue, and instead of one medallion it carries a whole architecture: 8 tomato red lobed cartouches, 4 ivory quatrefoil medallions and a red arch at each corner, all laid over an ivory ogee lattice that ties the compartments together like the tilework of a mosque courtyard. It was woven about 40 years ago in kork wool, the soft first-shearing fleece from the lamb's neck and shoulders, on a cotton foundation at 240 to 260 knots per square inch, and it has never been on a floor. The pile is full and even across the whole surface, the ivory cotton fringes are clean, and the blue has the settled depth that only decades of age give to good wool. A certificate of authenticity from Rugs.net accompanies the rug.
Design and Motifs
The field is organized on a grid of 2 columns and 4 rows. Down each column run 4 red cartouches, each a lobed shield with a stepped top and a pointed base, outlined in ivory and filled with a navy arabesque, sage leaves and small ivory and blue blossoms around an ivory pendant core. Between the columns, on the center line, sit 4 ivory quatrefoil medallions holding sprays of red carnations and sage leaves, and between the rows a pair of navy pendant cartouches with lotus flowers hang from each red shield. At the 4 corners of the field the red takes the form of a mihrab, a tall arch with a stepped shoulder and a lobed ivory cartouche at its center, and the 2 arches at each end are joined by a navy arabesque of curling split leaves on the blue between them. Over the whole field an ivory ogee lattice runs from cartouche to cartouche, its lines drawn double in ivory and camel, and the sky blue ground inside every compartment is sown with a dense scatter of tiny ivory, red and navy blossoms on thin vines, so that no patch of plain blue is wider than a hand. A powder blue inner guard with a running navy and red palmette band frames the field, followed by an ivory guard with a red and blue blossom vine, then the wide cream main border, which alternates large navy and powder blue rosette medallions with red lotus palmettes on a scrolling powder blue vine, and a second ivory blossom guard, a powder blue palmette guard and a plain sky blue selvage close the frame.
Colors of This Sky Blue and Red Kashan Rug
The field is a sky blue, a clear mid blue with a hint of gray that reads as denim from across the room and as a softer cornflower up close, and it is the color that makes this rug unusual, since Kashan weavers almost always start from red or ivory. The cartouches and corner arches are a tomato red, bright and slightly orange, warmer than the deep madder of a classic Kashan, and against the blue they read as the strongest shapes on the rug. The main border and the quatrefoil medallions are a warm cream, closer to butter than to white, and the ivory of the lattice lines and the guards is a step paler. A midnight navy outlines every motif and fills the rosette medallions in the border, and inside the compartments the small flowers run through a powder blue, a sage and an olive green in the leaves, a camel tan in the lattice shadows, and a rose pink in a few blossom centers. Kork wool takes dye more evenly than ordinary wool and holds a soft sheen, which is why the blue looks almost velvety in the angled photographs. The back shows every color a shade lighter with no bleeding, and the knot rows are even and close.
Kashan Weaving and the Compartment Design
Kashan in central Persia, north of Isfahan, has been a weaving town since the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century, and its modern reputation rests on soft, lustrous local wool, a knot count in the 200s and the classic red field, navy medallion and ivory spandrel formula. A Kashan that leaves that formula behind is worth a second look. The compartment layout here descends from the Safavid garden and tile carpets, where the field was divided into panels by a lattice, and it was revived in a handful of Kashan workshops in the second half of the 20th century for buyers who wanted the town's wool and drawing without the medallion everyone else had. Kork pile at 240 to 260 knots per square inch is fine enough for the small blossoms in every compartment to read as individual flowers while staying thick enough for daily use. Our Kashan rug guide covers the town and its grades. Among 8x11 Persian rugs it is a living room or dining room piece for a buyer who wants blue rather than red on the floor, and it will not be mistaken for anyone else's Kashan.
