6'2" x 9' Persian Sarouk Rug | Antique Red Floral Spray Field | Circa 1940s to 1950s

This is a classic mid-century Persian Sarouk rug of the type collectors look for first: a deep antique red field carrying detached floral sprays, framed by a black-ground main border and a stack of narrow guard stripes. It is hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation, and the pile still stands full and even across all 4 corners, with the original ivory cotton fringe intact at both ends. At 6'2" x 9" the proportions read as a true room size piece, and it sits comfortably in the family of 6x9 Persian rugs that anchor a seating group without swallowing the room. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The field is drawn in the signature Sarouk manner: separate floral sprays, each built from a central rosette with radiating serrated leaves, curled tendrils and small budded stems, floating on open red ground rather than locking into a rigid grid. Look closely at the center and the sprays gather into a soft lozenge shape, an implied medallion suggested purely by how the bouquets are grouped, which is the more sophisticated way Sarouk weavers handled composition. Around the field runs a black-ground main border of alternating palmettes, flower baskets and 8 petal rosettes, flanked by ivory and indigo guard stripes with a running vine. The corners resolve cleanly, the spandrel bouquets are larger and more open than the field sprays, and the drawing stays curvilinear throughout, with no stiff or angular shortcuts. Details worth noting are the tiny paired leaf tips and the pale cream flower heads that punctuate the darker clusters and keep the pattern reading at a distance.

Antique Red Ground with Indigo and Ivory Florals

The dominant color is a saturated antique red, closer to a ripe cherry than to brick, with the gentle tonal movement across the field that only comes from natural fleece taking dye at slightly different rates. Against it, the floral work is carried by two blues: a deep indigo used for outlines, leaf masses and the border ground, and a lighter cornflower blue used inside the blossoms and rosettes. Ivory and soft cream give the pattern its lift, appearing in flower heads, the inner guard stripe and the outer fringe. Secondary accents include dusty rose, salmon, pale gold and small touches of sage and olive green in the leaf work, plus occasional muted apricot in the corner bouquets. Seen from a low angle the pile shifts between a lighter strawberry red and a darker wine red depending on the nap direction, and the reverse shows the same clear, well-saturated palette, a reliable sign of stable dyes that have aged rather than faded.

Sarouk Weaving in Central Persia

Sarouk is a village and weaving district near Arak in central Persia, long the source of the sturdiest fine floral rugs Persia produced for the Western market, and the tradition of Persian Sarough weaving is defined as much by structure as by pattern. The knotting here is tight and regular, the wool is heavy and lanolin rich, and the resulting handle is firm with real weight behind it, which is why pieces from the 1940s and 1950s routinely survive decades of daily traffic and still show pile to spare. The back photograph shows even knot rows, a clean cotton foundation and a crisp reading of the front design, all evidence of disciplined workshop weaving rather than casual village work. If you want to understand how weave, wool and dye combine to place a piece in a period, our guide on dating an antique rug walks through the same clues we used on this one.