4'7" x 7' Persian Sarough Rug | Open Apple Red Field with Floral Medallion | 1970s, Perfect Condition

Open field pieces are the hardest rugs in the bazaar to weave well, because there is nowhere to hide. This Persian Sarough rug from the 1970s is exactly that kind of piece: 4'7" x 7' of hand-knotted wool in which the apple red ground is left almost entirely plain, so the weaver's control of color, tension and clipping is on full display. The pile is still thick and even from guard border to guard border, the ivory selvedges are intact, and the cotton fringe is clean and unworn on both ends, which is why it is graded in perfect condition rather than simply very good. At 55" x 84" it is a true furnishing size, generous enough to anchor a seating group yet easy to place in a study, bedroom or landing. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the classic Sarough medallion and corner formula, reduced to its essentials. At the center sits a small lobed diamond medallion, roughly 8 lobes deep, built from a ring of ivory and blue palmettes around a tiny rose colored rosette, with curling split leaves scrolling outward and a slender finial pointing to each end. All 4 corners carry heavy floral sprays of open roses, carnations and serrated leaves that arch inward to frame the field with a soft scalloped outline, and a pair of tiny pendant buds drops from each spray into the open ground. Between medallion and corners the field is deliberately bare, so the eye reads the wool itself. The border system is a wide ivory main band of linked palmettes and curling vine, flanked by narrow red and navy guard stripes set with small boxed rosettes, the kind of tight, repetitive minor border that rewards a close look at the corner photograph.

Apple Red, Ivory and Blue

The field is apple red, a warm clear red with a faint salmon cast that turns slightly brick toned in raking light and slightly coral where the pile leans the other way. Because the ground is open, that single color carries the rug, and the wool shows the gentle tonal breathing of hand-dyed yarn rather than a flat machine tone. Against it the ivory main border reads almost cream, nearly white at the outer edge where the pile catches the light. The ornament is drawn in a tight range of blues: deep indigo for the outlines and the medallion core, a mid cornflower blue for the smaller blossoms, and a pale powder blue for the leaf tips, with touches of soft sea green and old rose inside the palmettes. Charcoal navy guard stripes separate the ivory band from the red, and the plain red outer edge finishes the rug. If you are building a scheme around red and burgundy Persian rugs, this is the friendlier, brighter end of that family rather than a dark oxblood.

Sarough Weaving in Central Persia

Sarough is a village in the Markazi district of central Persia, in the weaving belt around Arak, and it gave its name to one of the most dependable workshop traditions in the country. Sarough weavers work on a cotton foundation with a heavy, tightly packed wool pile, beaten down hard so the rug sits flat and takes decades of traffic without thinning. The back photograph shows what that discipline looks like: small, level, regular knots in straight rows, with the border drawing just as crisp from behind as it is on the face. Local wool from the Zagros flocks is springy and slightly lustrous, which is why a plain Sarough field holds light the way this one does. Pieces from the 1970s like this one represent the last generation of fully traditional village workshop output before export patterns changed, and in a hard-to-find scale they sit comfortably alongside the rest of our 5x7 Persian rugs.