4'6" x 6'9" Persian Sarough Rug | Red Floral Medallion | Sky Blue and Ivory Border

This 4'6" x 6'9" piece is exactly the kind of weaving that made Persian Sarough rugs the benchmark for durable formal floor covering: a dense 3/8" wool pile on a cotton foundation, knotted by hand, with drawing that stays crisp from the medallion right out to the outer guard stripe. The proportions land squarely in the most useful footprint in the house, which is why buyers searching 5x7 Persian rugs tend to circle back to Sarough work. Condition is excellent, with full even pile, straight sides and intact cotton fringe at both ends, as the reverse photograph shows. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted Persian rug.

Design and Motifs

The field is built around a lobed central medallion with a small rosette at its heart, ringed by 8 petal blossoms, split palmettes and serrated leaves. Slender pendants run off the top and bottom of the medallion into a field packed with curling vines, boteh-like leaf forms and open flower heads, all drawn in the curvilinear manner rather than the angular village style. The 4 corners carry ivory spandrels filled with their own bouquets, which frames the medallion and keeps the busy field from closing in. The main border repeats a turtle palmette and vine sequence, flanked by a pair of narrow floral guard bands on each side and finished with a fine barber-pole stripe at the outer edge. The close-up shows how tightly the outlining is held: every leaf and petal is given a light contour line so the pattern reads cleanly from standing height.

A Red Field Lit by Sky Blue and Ivory

The ground is a warm brick red that leans slightly toward terracotta under direct light and deepens to a true madder red in shade, exactly the shift you see between the flat overhead photograph and the angled floor shots. Light sky blue does the heavy lifting on top of it: the medallion core, the scrolling vine work and the outermost guard band all sit in that clear pale blue, which is what gives the rug its lift against so much red. Ivory appears in the 4 corner spandrels and in the fine outlining of the leaves, and a deep navy anchors the main border and the shadow lines inside the medallion. Secondary tones fill in the rest, soft salmon and coral in the blossoms, olive and old gold in the leaves and palmettes, with occasional touches of aubergine. The palette is traditional and warm, and it works with wood floors, cream walls and both dark and light furniture.

Sarough Weaving in West Central Persia

Sarough is a weaving village in the Arak district of west central Persia, the same region that produced Mahal and Sultanabad weaving, and it built its reputation on a heavy, tightly packed Persian knot over a cotton foundation. The wool from that area is springy and takes dye well, which is why Sarough reds hold their depth for generations instead of going flat. What separates a good Sarough from the ordinary village product is the drawing, and this one shows the finer hand: a properly resolved medallion, spandrels that meet the border cleanly, and a floral vocabulary carried through the field at consistent scale rather than filled in by eye. The pile is cut at 3/8", substantial enough to take real traffic, and the compact weave visible on the reverse is what makes a rug of this type outlast the room it is bought for.