10'1" x 13' Persian Sarough Rug | All Over Floral Design with Star Medallion | Excellent Condition

This 10'1" x 13' Sarough is a room size city weave from west central Persia, and it behaves the way the good ones do: it fills a formal space, takes traffic, and never looks fussy. The field is a true tomato red, drawn edge to edge with fine floral vinework around a small ivory and gold star medallion, and the 3/8" wool pile still stands full and even across all 13 feet of length. The foundation is cotton, the sides and ends are intact, and the condition is excellent with no repairs. Collectors who have read up on Persian Sarough rugs buy them for the wool, which is heavy, faintly glossy and famously long wearing. Among 10x13 Persian rugs this one sits in the most usable range, big enough for a full sofa group or a 10 seat table, and it ships with our certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The layout is a classic curvilinear Sarouk composition: a small 8 petal star medallion in ivory and soft gold at the center, ringed by navy and teal leaf forms, then an all over floral design that covers the entire red field with split palmettes, cupped blossoms, serrated acanthus leaves and long ivory arabesque scrolls that curl back on themselves like cloudbands. All 4 corners carry light blue spandrels filled with ivory vine and a deep red rosette, which lifts the corners out of the field and frames the medallion without the heavy weight of a full ground medallion scheme. The main border is a navy ground carrying alternating palmettes and rosettes on a continuous meander, flanked by a light blue guard stripe of small boteh buds and paired ivory stripes of running vine, visible clearly in the corner close-up. The drawing is hand drawn rather than mechanical, so the repeats shift slightly from side to side, a sign the weavers worked from a cartoon but filled the field by eye.

A Deep Red Field with Navy and Ivory

The dominant color is a warm tomato red, clear and even, with the slight tonal movement across the field that only natural dye lots and hand spun wool produce. Against it the navy main border reads almost aubergine in raking light, a dark indigo that gives the rug its heavy frame and makes the red Persian rugs look that decorators keep coming back to. Between those two poles the palette is cooler than you expect from the thumbnail: medium sky blue in the corner spandrels and the inner guard, pale ivory and cream in the arabesques and vine stripes, a soft buttery gold at the medallion center, with small notes of teal green, rust and faded peach in the blossoms. The ivory guard stripes do the real work, outlining every border and keeping the red and navy from running together. The outer edge finishes in plain red wool with ivory fringe at both ends.

Sarough Weaving and Quality

Sarough, often spelled Sarouk, is a weaving town in the Markazi region of west central Persia, near Arak, and it built its reputation on two things: dense knotting on a cotton foundation and exceptional local wool. The pile here is cut at 3/8", left slightly fuller than a fine Isfahan or Nain would be, which is exactly how Sarough weavers intend it, since the extra pile height is what lets these rugs absorb decades of foot traffic without going thin. The back shows tight, regular rows with no slack areas and no crooked lines, so the rug lies flat and square at 10'1" x 13' without stretching. Curvilinear drawing at this scale demands real knot density, and the fact that the small medallion, the scroll tips and the tiny boteh buds in the guard stripe all hold their shape tells you the weaver had enough knots per inch to do the design justice.