3'5" x 10'2" Persian Sarough Runner | Triple Medallion Multi Color | Semi Antique Wool Village Weave

This 3'5" x 10'2" Persian Sarough runner is a village piece with real personality: 3 large medallions running the length of a charcoal black field, framed by a wide red border and a stack of narrow barber pole guard stripes. The wool pile is thick and springy, knotted on a cotton foundation, and the pile still stands evenly from end to end with no low spots. At just over 10 feet long and a narrow 41 inches wide, it was woven for a corridor, and it is one of the few pieces that solves a long hallway runner problem without looking like a filler rug. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The layout is a classic village reading of the Sarough medallion: 3 stepped diamond medallions set one after the other down the length, each one hooked and serrated at the edges so the outline reads as a jagged star rather than a smooth oval. The 2 end medallions are drawn in ivory around an 8 petal rosette center, while the middle medallion flips the scheme and fills with coral red around a small ivory cross form. Between them the charcoal field is packed with small scattered ornament: rosettes, hooked leaves, tiny boteh shapes and paired blue palmettes that sit like anchors between the medallions. Camel spandrels cut across the corners of each medallion panel, and the field ends in bold red palmette shoulders at both finishes. The border is a wide red band of serrated leaf and flower heads, flanked on both sides by at least 4 narrow guard stripes of reciprocal sawtooth and running dots in navy, ivory and green. Nothing here is machine even, and that slight hand drawn wobble in the repeats is exactly what separates a real village Sarough from a workshop copy.

A Multi Color Palette Anchored in Red and Charcoal

The field is a deep charcoal black that shifts toward aubergine where the light catches the pile, and that dark ground is what makes the rest of the palette read so cleanly. The dominant accent is a warm tomato red, used for the main border, the center medallion and the large palmettes at each end. Around it the weaver worked in soft rose pink, chalk ivory, a clear teal green, mustard and olive gold in the corner fills, deep navy in the guard stripes, touches of lilac and violet in the small field ornament, and a pale camel that frames the medallion panels. Because the dyes are natural and hand mixed, the reds and pinks carry gentle abrash, the slight tonal banding that moves across the width as the wool batch changed on the loom. In a dim corridor the rug reads as red and black with bright jewel flecks; under daylight the pinks, greens and golds come forward and the piece turns genuinely multi color. It sits comfortably with warm wood floors, cream walls, and both antique and casual modern furniture.

Sarough Origin and Weaving Quality

Sarough weaving comes from the villages around Arak in central Persia, a region that has supplied the American market with heavy, long wearing rugs for well over a century. The reputation rests on construction rather than knot count: a thick wool pile on a firm cotton foundation, beaten down hard so the rug has weight and body underfoot. You can see it on the folded corner in the third photograph, where the back shows a tight, even knot line with the pattern reading almost as crisply from behind as from the face. Runners in this tradition were woven for the long service corridors of Persian houses and they take foot traffic without flattening, which is why so many survive in good order. This example has come through with full pile, straight sides, secure selvages and finished ends, and it is ready to go straight onto the floor of a hallway, an entry or a galley kitchen.