11' x 20'6" Persian Sarouk Rug | 1930s Antique All Over Floral | Palace Size Oversize

This is a true palace piece, knotted in the 1930s and running 11' x 20'6", long enough to carry a full dining table with chairs pulled out and still turn the corner into the next seating group. Antique Persian Sarouk rugs of this length are uncommon, and this one has survived close to a century with the pile still full, the wool still glossy under raking light, and the drawing crisp from the first floral spray to the last. The reds have mellowed into that deep, slightly purplish burgundy that only time gives, and the original cotton fringe is intact at both ends. It sits among the largest of our oversize Persian rugs, and like every piece we import it ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. The field is the classic Sarouk all over arrangement of detached floral sprays, each one a small bouquet that floats free on the open red ground and repeats down the length in mirrored rows. Look closely and the vocabulary is generous: footed flower vases with tulips rising out of them, tall cypress forms, curling boteh, weeping stems hung with round rosettes, and broad serrated leaves that fan out like wings. At the center of each vertical repeat sits a small square cruciform motif flanked by a pair of gold and coral palmettes, a quiet anchor in an otherwise flowing pattern. The navy main border carries a procession of large shell palmettes alternating with rosettes and split leaves, framed on both sides by narrow guard stripes of vine and blossom in rose, ivory and olive. Because the layout is all over rather than medallion based, a sofa, a console or a long table can sit anywhere on it without cutting off the composition.

A Burgundy Ground Read in Indigo, Sky Blue and Olive

The field is a saturated burgundy red that shifts with the nap, cooler and almost wine dark from one end, warmer and closer to raspberry from the other. Against it the blues do the heavy lifting: deep indigo for the outlines, stems and the large serrated leaves, a clear mid blue for the flower heads, and a pale sky blue used sparingly inside the blossoms so the field seems to sparkle rather than sit flat. Olive and sage green thread through the leaf work and the border foliage, warm saffron gold picks out the central palmettes and the fan shaped leaves, and small touches of ivory, coral and soft rose land in the flower centers like points of light. The main border reverses the scheme, a dark navy ground carrying red, gold, green and cream, which frames the burgundy field cleanly and keeps a rug of this scale from drifting at the edges.

Sarouk Weaving in Central Persia

Sarouk is a village northwest of Arak in central Persia, in what is now Markazi province, and its looms have been the standard for heavy, dense, hard wearing Persian floor rugs since the late 19th century. The 1930s were the high point of the export trade, when American importers commissioned exactly this format: a thick wool pile on a cotton foundation, an all over floral field on a red ground, and oversize dimensions made for the big rooms of the period. The weave is tight and even, the pile was left generous, and the combination is why these rugs are still on floors ninety years later instead of in restoration. Structure, dye behavior and the specific handling of the floral sprays are all part of how you date an antique Oriental rug, and everything on this one points to that interwar Sarouk workshop tradition at its most confident.