10'4" x 12'10" Persian Sarouk Rug | Red Field with Navy Star Medallion | Semi Antique, Excellent Condition

This is a semi antique room size piece from the Sarouk weaving district of central Persia, measuring 10'4" x 12'10" with a hand-spun wool pile on a cotton foundation. The drawing is the classic village formula that collectors look for in Persian Sarouk rugs: a single star medallion floating on an uninterrupted red ground, ivory spandrels drawn as quarter sections of the same floral scheme, and a wide ivory main border. The pile is still a full 3/8" and reads evenly from end to end, with the slight abrash in the red that only hand-dyed wool produces. At just under 11 by 13 feet it sits squarely in the most useful proportion we sell, so it belongs with our other 10x13 Persian rugs, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a navy star medallion with 8 lobed points, filled with an ivory rosette cartouche and small salmon palmettes, and finished at top and bottom with a pendant lozenge. Around it the field is covered in a continuous system of curling leaves, split palmettes and small rosettes, all outlined in ivory so the vine reads as light drawing over dark ground rather than as separate blossoms. The four corners carry ivory spandrels with the same vocabulary rendered against a pale ground, which pulls the eye outward and makes the medallion sit forward. The ivory main border runs a repeat of blue shield shaped botehs separated by coral stars and small hooked brackets, flanked by narrow red guard stripes with gold vine and a serrated ivory ribbon at the outer edge. The border close-up shows how cleanly the weavers held those zigzag minor stripes over a 46 foot perimeter, which is a good tell for a careful village loom.

The Color: Tomato Red, Ivory and Deep Navy

The field is a warm tomato red, closer to brick than to crimson, and it shifts a shade lighter and a shade deeper across the width where the dye lots changed on the loom. Against it the ivory is a true undyed cream rather than white, soft enough to keep the contrast from going harsh. The medallion is a deep aubergine leaning navy, the darkest note in the rug, and it is repeated in small doses through the vine so the eye keeps finding it. The supporting palette is where this weaving earns its keep: salmon pink in the palmette centers, soft teal and slate blue in the leaves, a muted gold in the inner guard stripe, and touches of green and brown at rosette centers. Seen flat from above the rug reads red and ivory; seen from standing height on the floor the blues and the salmon come forward and the whole surface warms up under lamplight.

Sarouk Weaving and the Mahal Villages of Central Persia

Sarouk is a village group northwest of Arak in central Persia, and its looms have supplied the American market longer than almost any other Persian weaving district. The wool from this region is heavy and slightly oily, which is why a Sarouk of this age still shows a thick, springy pile instead of a thin one, and why the reds hold their depth rather than going chalky. Pieces from the surrounding villages are often sold alongside Mahal rugs, the broader Sultanabad family, and this weaving sits between the two: a town quality medallion layout executed with the honest, slightly relaxed hand of village work. The back shows a firm, regular knot over a cotton foundation with the rows beaten down evenly, roughly 12 knots to the inch across the width, which for a rug at this scale means it will take decades of traffic without the pile opening up.