10'4" x 11'5" Persian Sarough Rug | Navy Floral Medallion on Deep Red Field | Semi-Antique, Excellent Condition

This is an unusually broad 10'4" x 11'5" piece, close enough to square that it sits beautifully under a round dining table or centered in a room where a standard 9x12 always looks a little narrow. The drawing is classic Persian Sarough: an open red field, a single indigo medallion packed with small rose heads, and detached flowering sprays scattered with real confidence rather than repeated mechanically. The wool is heavy and lanolin rich, the pile is even from end to end, and the handle has the weight collectors expect from an older Arak-area weave. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity stating origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a lobed, pointed indigo medallion filled edge to edge with small 8 petal rose heads in coral and ivory, with a pale ivory cartouche at the very core carrying a pair of mirrored serrated leaves. Slender green stems taper out of both ends into narrow pendants. Around it the red ground is left largely open, which is exactly what makes the floating elements read so clearly: paired flower clusters set in fan shaped bunches, standing vases with sprays rising from them, and small bouquets tied off with a single leaf. The stepped field outline sends ivory and gold serrated leaves into all 4 corners, and the corner spandrels shift to a densely worked blue ground covered in a small repeating flowerhead lattice. The main border runs a rhythm of palmettes and vase forms on a deep navy strip, framed by teal guard stripes of running boteh and a fine ivory reciprocal stripe on the outer edge.

Color: Deep Red Ground with Indigo and Teal

The field is a saturated madder red that carries a faint abrash, a natural variation in dye lot that moves in soft horizontal bands across the open ground and proves the yarn was dyed in small batches. Against it, the medallion and main border are a near black indigo, dark enough at a distance to read as a frame rather than a pattern until you step closer. Between those two poles sits the most appealing color in the rug: a clear peacock teal that fills the spandrels and the guard stripes and keeps the palette from becoming heavy. Coral rose heads, warm apricot, soft gold leaves, pale ivory outlines and small touches of olive green carry the detail work, and the ivory appears just often enough to draw the eye around the composition. Under lamplight the red deepens toward burgundy while the teal stays bright, so the rug changes character between day and evening.

Sarough Weaving in Central Persia

Sarough is a village north of Arak in central Persia, and its weavers built a worldwide reputation on two things: a curved floral vocabulary borrowed from the old court workshops, and wool tough enough to survive generations of use. The back of this piece shows a tight, regular knot line on an ivory cotton foundation, with the depressed warp structure that gives Sarough rugs their firm, board-like handle and their famous resistance to wear. Pile height is still generous and the selvages and fringes are sound, which is why the condition is graded excellent. Among large hand-knotted Persian rugs the 10'4" x 11'5" footprint is genuinely scarce, since most workshop looms were dressed for the standard 9x12 and 10x14 formats, and a near square weave of this size was almost always a commission for a specific room.