10'4" x 12' Persian Sarouk Rug | All-Over Floral Field | Ivory Border, Excellent Condition

This is a full room size piece, 10'4" x 12', hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and drawn in the classic floral manner of Persian Sarouk rugs. The pile stands a solid 3/8", the handle is heavy and firm, and the ends and sides are clean and original with bright cotton fringe on both ends. Condition is excellent, with even pile across the whole field and no repairs or thin areas. It is one of those honest, well woven decorative Persian pieces that covers a living room or dining room without fuss, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The field is a continuous all-over floral lattice built from curling serrated leaves, thin vine scrolls and full open palmettes, with small rose sprays and blossoms filling every gap. At the center sits a compact lobed medallion outlined in dark indigo, its sage and ivory ground packed with an 8 petal rosette, paired blossoms and small red tulip buds, exactly as shown in the close-up. The 4 corners carry stepped ivory spandrels that repeat the same blossoms at a smaller scale, and the main border runs a rhythm of large rosettes and split palmettes linked by a fine meander. Narrow guard stripes with rows of small flowerheads frame the border on both sides. The drawing is village curvilinear rather than workshop precise, which is what gives Sarouk work its warmth.

A Light Red Field With Ivory, Blue and Green

The ground is a light red that reads as a warm brick or soft terracotta in daylight, lighter and friendlier than the deep madder of most older Sarouk weaving, which is why it settles easily against oak floors and wood furniture. Over that field the vinework is carried in two blues, a clear mid sky blue for the leaves and a near-black indigo for the outlines, so the pattern has depth rather than flatness. Ivory does the heavy lifting in the wide main border and the corner spandrels, keeping the whole rug bright at the edges. Soft rose pink, apricot and a muted sage green appear in the blossoms and in the medallion ground, with small touches of tan and brown in the palmette shading. The wool takes light well and the color shifts slightly with the nap direction.

Sarouk Weaving and the Arak Region

Sarouk is a village in west-central Persia, in the weaving district around Arak that also produced Mahal and Sultanabad work. Sarouk weavers built their reputation on substance: a thick cotton warp and weft, a dense Persian knot and a heavy clipped wool pile that stands up to decades of traffic in a main room. That is why so many of these rugs from mid-century American homes are still in service today, and why this one has kept a full even pile at 10'4" x 12'. The design vocabulary here, an all-over floral field with a small central medallion, is the pattern Sarouk is best known for, and the scale suits large room size Persian rugs where the furniture sits fully on the weave.