10' x 16'2" Persian Sarough Rug | Mohajeran All-Over Floral | 1930s Antique, Excellent Condition

Woven in the 1930s and still carrying a full, even wool pile after roughly 90 years, this 10' x 16'2" piece is the kind of antique Sarough that is getting harder to find in a genuinely usable oversize format. The field is a deep mahogany red, drawn edge to edge with detached floral sprays rather than a central medallion, and the navy main border anchors the whole thing without crowding it. If you are comparing it against other Persian Sarough rugs, look at the pile depth in the rolled-edge photos: this one was never walked thin. At this length it belongs in the oversize Persian rugs group, easily covering a long dining table with chairs pulled out or grounding a full great room. It ships with a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials and age.

Design and Motifs

The field carries the classic Mohajeran style Sarouk layout: dozens of separate floral sprays, each one a little bouquet of palmettes, serrated leaves and small rosettes on a curving stem, scattered in mirrored rows across the open red ground. There is no medallion and no repeating lattice, so the eye keeps moving. Look closely at the detail photos and you will find vase forms, bud clusters, feathered leaf fans and a few boteh-like teardrops tucked between the larger sprays. The main border runs a navy indigo ground with big paired palmettes and open rosettes linked by a continuous vine, and it is framed on both sides by camel guard stripes carrying small flowerheads and a slim blue vine minor stripe. The corners resolve cleanly, with the vine turning rather than breaking, which is the mark of a weaver working from a properly drawn cartoon rather than improvising at the end of the row.

A Mahogany Red Field Against Indigo and Camel

The ground colour is a true mahogany, a red with brown and wine depth in it rather than a bright pillar-box tone. Because the pile is still tall, it reads differently with the nap: darker and almost burgundy when you look into the pile, brighter and more raspberry when you look down the pile, which is exactly what you want in a rug this size because it keeps a big floor from going flat. Against that field the sprays are drawn in indigo navy, mid sky blue, camel, apricot and a soft salmon, with olive green leaves and small ivory highlights lifting the outlines. The navy border is deep enough to read almost black in low light, and the camel guard bands are the lightest note on the rug, giving the outer frame a warm sand-coloured edge. Small rust accents appear inside the rosette centres. Gentle abrash, the natural variation of hand-dyed wool, moves through the red field in soft horizontal shifts.

Sarough Weaving From the Arak Region

Sarough is a weaving town in the Arak region of west central Persia, and the Mohajeran name attaches to the village work generally held to have the best drawing and the heaviest, most lustrous wool of the group. Rugs of this generation were woven on a cotton foundation with a dense, thick pile and were built for hard use, which is why so many of them are still on floors today while lighter contemporaries are long gone. The back photos show a tight, regular knot line with the pattern reading clearly through to the reverse and clean ivory cotton warps finished into a firm fringe. The wear pattern, the palette and the drawing together support the 1930s dating; if you want to understand how weavers, dealers and collectors date an antique Oriental rug, the same signals are worth learning before you buy a piece at this level.