10'2" x 16'3" Indian Sarouk Design Rug | Midnight Blue All-Over Floral Field | Salmon Border

This is a big, quiet, formal piece: 10'2" x 16'3" of hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation, woven in India in the classic Sarouk manner with detached floral sprays scattered across a midnight blue ground. Nothing about it is machine made or printed. Every blossom is tied knot by knot, and the back photo with the ruler shows the even, tightly packed rows that give the drawing its clean edges. At this footprint it belongs in the group of genuine oversize hand-knotted rugs that can cover a full great room or a long formal dining room without a border of bare floor showing. Condition is excellent with full pile and original hand-tied fringe, and the rug ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is a handmade, hand-knotted piece.

Design and Motifs

The field carries no medallion. Instead it uses the Sarouk formula of freely spaced floral sprays, each one a small bouquet of rosettes, buds and curling serrated leaves, arranged in staggered rows so the eye keeps moving across the whole 16'3" length. A single larger blossom cluster anchors the center, with a small ringed rosette at its heart, and the surrounding sprays mirror one another across the long axis. This is a true all-over floral design, which is the practical choice at this size because furniture can sit anywhere on it without cutting a medallion in half. The main border repeats a large frontal palmette alternating with a smaller rosette on a leafy vine, framed inside and out by narrow guard stripes of reciprocal scallops and tiny four petal flowerheads.

Color: Midnight Blue, Salmon and Sage

The ground is a deep midnight blue that reads almost black in the close-up photographs and warms slightly under lamplight, which is exactly what makes the flowers glow. Against it the sprays are worked in camel, straw gold, soft apricot and a muted rose, with sage and deep olive greens in the leaves and stems and small touches of pewter grey in the flower centers. The main border shifts the whole rug warmer: a broad salmon pink band, softened to a dusty peach, carrying palmettes outlined in dark teal and sage with pale cream highlights. Outer and inner guard stripes pick up ivory and dark blue, and the ends finish in a natural ivory fringe. The palette is dark and grounding rather than bright, so it sits comfortably with wood tones, brass, leather and cream upholstery.

Origin and Weaving Quality

This rug was made in India, where most of the world's best contemporary hand-knotted weaving is now done, and it is honest about that. Indian workshops have carried the Sarouk drawing forward for decades, and the weavers here handled the curved stems and the scale of the border cleanly across more than 16 feet of length, which is where lesser work usually goes crooked. The wool is springy with a good clip that keeps the outlines crisp, and the cotton foundation gives the rug the weight and stability an oversize floor piece needs so it lies flat and stays square. If you are weighing this against a Persian piece, our guide on what separates a Persian rug from a broader Oriental rug explains the difference in plain terms.