10'11" x 18'3" Oversize Persian Kashan Rug | Signed Cartouche | Ivory All-Over Floral | Excellent Condition

At 10'11" x 18'3" this is close to 200 square feet of hand-knotted wool, the format that only a workshop with a long loom and a patient client will attempt, and it sits in the small group of oversize Persian rugs that can actually fill a great room or a long formal salon wall to wall. It is a signed Persian Kashan rug, with the weaver's cartouche worked into the border in navy on ivory, and the drawing holds together from one end to the other without the drift you often see when a pattern has to be repeated over 18 feet. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, still full and even, the ends and sides are intact, and the condition is excellent. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a 100% hand-knotted piece woven in Kashan, central Persia.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. The field is an all-over floral system, a continuous vine that loops the length of the rug and carries large 8 petal rosettes, lobed palmettes, small tulip and carnation heads and long serrated leaves that curl back on themselves in the classic Kashan manner. Look at the close-up and you can see how each rosette is outlined twice, once in dark indigo and once in a paler blue, which is what gives the field its depth on an ivory ground. The pattern mirrors cleanly on both axes, so the 4 corners of the field resolve with matching leaf and blossom groups rather than a cut-off repeat. Around it runs a wide main border of palmettes linked by a meandering vine, framed by 4 narrower guard stripes of running scroll and small reciprocal figures, and set into that main border is the signature cartouche, an ivory panel with navy script that marks this as a named workshop piece rather than anonymous production.

Ivory Ground, Indigo and Sky Blue Drawing

The field is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than white, and the wool has enough luster that it reads pale gold in raking light and cooler grey-white straight on. Every element of the pattern is drawn in blue, and the palette runs through at least 4 distinct values: a near-black indigo for outlines and leaf spines, a strong mid blue for the rosette centers, a soft sky blue for the palmette bodies, and a dusty slate blue that carries the main border and gives the whole rug its quiet, silvery cast. Against that cool range sit small warm accents, camel and old gold in the vine stems and guard stripes, a few soft salmon-red flower heads no bigger than a fingertip, and touches of pale celadon in the border blossoms. The result is a rug that behaves like a neutral in a room while still being genuinely patterned, which is why this ivory and blue combination is the most requested version of the Kashan formula. If a pale ground is the deciding factor for you, it sits squarely in our ivory and beige rugs selection.

Kashan: The Weaving Town and the Quality of the Weave

Kashan sits in central Persia, north of Isfahan, and its looms descend directly from the Safavid court workshops of the 16th century. The town is known for two things: soft, lustrous local wool that takes dye deeply and holds its sheen for generations, and a curvilinear drawing tradition disciplined enough to keep a vine flowing over 18 feet without wobbling. That tradition is so much the default image of a fine Persian rug that when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. The back of this piece shows tight, regular rows of knots on a cotton foundation, the kind of even beat-down that comes from a single experienced weaving team working steadily rather than a rug rushed off a loom, and the signed cartouche tells you a master took responsibility for it. For a room that has been waiting for a rug this size, an ivory ground Kashan of this weave and condition is not a piece that turns up often.