6'6" x 9'11" Persian Sarouk Rug | Navy Blue | Rectangular

A rectangular rug of 6'6" x 9'11", knotted by hand in Persia to a Sarouk design. The field is a very dark blue, close to black where the pile turns away from the light, and it carries two large stepped medallions in brick red set one above the other. Around that runs a wide ivory border of star rosettes, framed on both sides by narrower red bands. The condition is recorded as excellent, and the pile in the close photographs stands evenly with the drawing still crisp.

Design

The two medallions are built from red panels filled with a fine white lattice, each panel stepped and squared off like a bracket, and each medallion closes on a pale green eight-pointed star with a small red rosette at its centre. Rows of little outlined squares, some single and some grouped in fours, run through the red arms and across the blue ground between them. Serrated leaves in red and slate blue arch out from the medallion shoulders on brown stems, and the open blue field between and around them is filled with rosettes, carnations, lotus palmettes and small detached leaves. The four corners are cut away as ivory spandrels drawn with a thin scrolling vine. The main border alternates ivory cartouches holding eight-pointed star rosettes with pale blue palmettes; inside and outside it sit red guard stripes of small white and cream flowerheads, and the outermost edge is a narrow reciprocal sawtooth.

Colour

The ground is a saturated navy blue that reads almost indigo in the full view and shows its blue only in the raking light of the detail shots. Against it the medallions are a brick red leaning towards madder, lightened by the white lattice drawn over them, and the main border is ivory with a faint cream-grey cast. The smaller notes do most of the work: pale celadon green in the star centres, a soft sky blue in the leaves and border palmettes, mustard gold in the flowerheads, and a warm brown in the stems. The border reds are a shade cooler and rosier than the reds of the field, which keeps the frame distinct from what it encloses.

Making

The rug is hand-knotted, woven in Persia in the Sarouk manner, with the curvilinear floral drawing and the broad formal border that the type is known for. The close photograph taken with a ruler laid across the ivory border shows the knots in regular rows and the outlines held to a single node, which is why the fine white lattice inside the medallions and the thin vine in the spandrels stay legible. The ends and selvedges photograph intact, and the table records the condition as excellent.