6'6" x 6'10" Persian Sarouk Rug | Wool | Square

A near square rug at 6'6" x 6'10", knotted in Persia with a wool pile. The field is a rose-toned red covered edge to edge in small flowers, leaves and curling vine, with four blue diamond medallions set around a lobed ivory centre and a wide blue border closing the whole thing in. Ivory fringe runs off both ends.

Design

The Sarouk drawing here is all-over rather than built around a single medallion, though a centre is still marked: a lobed ivory cartouche with a small rosette at its heart, flanked by ivory palmette sprays at the midpoint of each side. Four blue diamonds sit at the quarters, each with a stepped ivory inner diamond and a red rosette inside that, their outlines serrated and picked out in dark navy. Between them the ground is filled with tiny flowerheads, paired leaves and slender stems, mirrored across both axes so the pattern reads the same from either end. The main border carries a slate blue ground with alternating ivory-ringed rosettes and burgundy cross-shaped palmettes, with small hooked crosses between, and narrow guard stripes of burgundy and vine run on either side of it.

Colour

The field is red on the rose side of madder, closer to raspberry in the open photographs and deeper where the pile turns away from the light. Against it the medallions and border read as a medium slate blue, drawn in with navy so dark it is nearly black at the outlines. Cream and ivory do the lifting, in the centre cartouche, the palmette sprays and the ringed rosettes of the border, and burgundy fills the cross motifs and parts of the inner guard. Small flecks of orange and gold appear in the flowerheads, scattered thinly enough to read as sparks rather than a fourth colour.

The making

The rug is hand-knotted, with a wool pile, and the back shows the pattern clearly knot by knot, including the small flowerheads of the field. The table dates it to the 1990's, which puts it among the semi-antique stock, and the condition is given as excellent: the pile stands evenly across the field, the ends are secure and the fringe is intact.