10' x 13'4" Persian Sarough Mahallat Rug | Kermanshah Medallion Design | 1980's Excellent Condition

A room-size piece from the Mahallat weaving district of central Persia, this 10' x 13'4" rug was knotted in the 1980's in the grade the trade still calls Kermanshah, the top quality level within the Sarough group. The wool pile sits on a cotton foundation, clipped at a medium height so the drawing stays crisp, and the back shown in the final photograph is tight and even from edge to edge with its original ivory fringe and firm red selvage intact. Among 10x13 Persian rugs this is the practical format that covers a full living room or seats a 10 seat dining table without crowding the walls. It is in excellent, essentially perfect condition with no repairs, no stains and no thin areas, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a hand-knotted Persian rug.

Design and Motifs

The field is built around a large 16 point star medallion, layered outward from a cream core with an 8 petal rosette, through a navy ring of lotus heads and curling arabesques, into a light blue tier of serrated leaves and a final dark outline that locks the whole figure against the red ground. Around it the weaver filled every inch with a classic all over floral composition of scrolling vines, split palmettes, lotus blossoms and small rosettes, all mirrored on both axes so the pattern reads the same from either end of the room. The 4 corners carry ivory and blue spandrels drawn with the same vinery, and the main navy border runs a steady rhythm of cream rosettes and palmettes between a light blue inner band, a reciprocal zigzag stripe and a narrow turquoise line that keeps the border from going heavy.

The Red, Navy and Light Blue Palette

The ground is a true madder red, deep and slightly cool rather than orange, and the close photographs show it carrying a faint natural variation across the width that only good wool and good dye do. Against it the navy of the border and the medallion rings reads almost black in low light and opens up to ink blue under lamplight, while the light blue tier of the medallion and the inner guard band add the airy mid tone that gives the rug its lift. Cream and ivory outline nearly every vine and flower head, which is what keeps a dense red field legible instead of muddy, and small quantities of salmon pink, soft teal green and a warm camel brown appear inside the palmettes and the corner spandrels. Set on light oak, pale stone or a grey floor as photographed, the red stays rich and the blues do the work of cooling it down.

Sarough Weaving in Mahallat and the Kermanshah Grade

Mahallat lies in the Markazi region of central Persia, in the belt of villages and small towns around Arak and old Sultanabad that produced the body of work known worldwide as Sarouk. Weavers there work from full cartoons rather than memory, which is why a curved medallion of this complexity comes out symmetrical over 13 feet of length, and the local wool takes a hard beat-down that leaves a compact, heavy handle able to absorb decades of traffic. Kermanshah in this context is a quality designation, not a town of origin: it marks the finely drawn, tightly knotted end of the production, with more knots per square inch and finer outlining than standard village work. If you want the full background on the type, our guide to Persian Sarough rugs covers the weaving centers, the grades and how to read the back of one.