10'1" x 12'11" Persian Sarouk Rug | Signed Red Field Medallion | Excellent Condition

A signed weaving is a different animal from an anonymous one, and this 10'1" x 12'11" Sarouk carries its cartouche openly in the upper border, woven in dark script on an ivory ground where the weaver expected it to be read. The rug is hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile that still stands upright and even across all 4 corners, and the back shown against the ruler confirms a tight, regular knot with crisp color separation. Everything about the drawing points to a workshop that was not cutting corners: the medallion is symmetrical, the vine scroll resolves cleanly at the border, and the field reads the same weight from end to end. These are the traits that define the best Persian Sarouk rugs, and this one sits comfortably in that group. It ships with a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The composition is built around a navy lobed medallion with 4 clawed extensions and a small ivory cartouche at its center, where a single rosette sits surrounded by pale green and rose petals. Out of that center the field opens into a dense curvilinear lattice of palmettes, split leaves, lotus heads and hooked vine tendrils, each blossom outlined so the drawing stays legible rather than dissolving into pattern. Large navy corner spandrels mirror the medallion's flowerwork and frame the field on all 4 sides, a classic Sarouk arrangement that gives the rug a clear center without closing it off. The main border runs a continuous procession of palmettes and rosettes on deep indigo, flanked by narrow guard stripes of reciprocal floral heads and a fine barber-pole outer stripe. Nothing here is mechanical: individual flower heads change color from one repeat to the next, which is how you tell a drawn cartoon executed by hand from a printed one. At 10'1" x 12'11" the scale of the drawing is judged well, with enough open red between motifs that the field breathes under furniture.

A Deep Red Field Lit by Navy, Ivory and Sage

The ground is a true madder-toned red, warm and slightly brick at the surface, deepening toward crimson where the pile catches shadow. Against it the navy of the medallion, spandrels and main border reads almost black in low light and resolves into indigo blue under a lamp, and that contrast is what carries the room. The secondary palette is where the rug earns its multi-color description: powder and mid blue in the vine scroll, ivory and cream in the outlining and the medallion center, soft sage and olive green in the leaves, mustard gold in the guard stripes, and small touches of rose pink and terracotta in the flower heads. A narrow band of aubergine appears in the outer guard border, visible in the corner detail. The abrash across the red field is gentle and even, the natural variation of hand-dyed wool rather than any fading, and it gives the ground a depth that flat commercial dyeing never achieves. For buyers working around a red and burgundy rug palette, this is a saturated, traditional example.

Sarouk Weaving in Central Persia

Sarouk sits in the Arak district of central Persia, and the name has meant serious room-size weaving for well over a century. The wool from that region is springy and takes dye deeply, the foundation is cotton warped tight, and the knotting is dense enough that Sarouk rugs have a reputation for outlasting the houses they were bought for. What separates a good Sarouk from an ordinary one is the discipline of the curvilinear drawing, since a flowing vine demands a high enough knot count to turn a smooth line, and this weaver clearly had it. The signature cartouche tells you the piece came from a named workshop rather than an unsupervised loom, which is the reason signed examples hold value the way they do. In a size like this it works as the anchor of a formal room, and shoppers comparing 10x13 Persian rugs will find few at this level of drawing and condition.