6'8" x 6'8" Persian Sarouk Square Rug | All Over Floral Coral Red Field | Excellent Condition

This is a true square, 80 inches on every side, hand-knotted in central Persia around the year 2000 on a cotton foundation with a 3/8 inch wool pile, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity. The field reads coral red, warmer and closer to salmon in daylight than it looks under studio lighting, and it is filled corner to corner with detached floral sprays instead of a single medallion. Condition is excellent: the pile stands full and even, the ivory border is clean, and the selvedges and fringe are sound. True squares are scarce in handmade weaving, which makes this one genuinely useful in a room where a rectangle fights the furniture, under a round table or between facing sofas. Anyone who has studied Persian Sarough rugs will read the drawing on sight.

Design and Motifs

The field is an all over floral design built from dozens of separate bouquets: rosettes, tulip and carnation heads, serrated curled leaves and small paisley buds, each spray outlined in dark navy so it sits clear of the open coral ground. Slender vine stems link the sprays into a loose ogee lattice, and the compartments mirror cleanly across both axes, so the 4 corners resolve with the same drawing. At the center the sprays tighten into a larger symmetrical cluster that acts as a focal point without ever becoming a formal medallion, the classic Sarouk compromise between village freedom and workshop order. The border system runs 5 bands deep: a navy outer stripe, a slate blue band of flowering vine, the wide ivory main border carrying alternating red palmettes and blue rosettes, then a second light blue vine band and a fine dart and zigzag minor stripe pulling the whole frame tight against the field.

A Coral Red Field Framed in Ivory and Blue

The ground color is the reason to buy this rug. It is a soft coral red, a madder tone that has mellowed toward salmon, bright enough to warm a cool room but far gentler than the hard brick reds found on many red and burgundy Persian rugs. Against it the flowers run in navy blue, a cooler light blue that also fills the two guard bands, deep brown, cream and beige, with small cherry red blossom centers and the occasional pale sage leaf for relief. The main border is a true beige ivory, which lifts the whole border away from the field and gives the square a visible outer edge even on a dark wood floor. Because the field is a single clean color across a wide open ground, the rug shifts noticeably with the light: pinker in morning sun, deeper and more terracotta under lamps, and the wool picks up a quiet sheen where the pile lies with the nap.

Sarough Weaving in Central Persia

Sarough, usually written Sarouk, is a weaving village near Arak in the Markazi region of central Persia, and its name has carried floral spray rugs into American homes for over a century. The weave is a Persian knot on a cotton warp and weft, beaten down firmly so the handle is heavy and the back is tight and regular, as the folded corner and reverse photographs show. Pile wool from this district is springy and takes dye deeply, which is why the coral ground reads solid rather than streaky across 80 inches. The real test here is the format: keeping a square square demands consistent tension and an even beat from the first row to the last, and this one measures true on both axes with straight sides and square corners. A cotton foundation, the mellow madder ground and the detached spray drawing are all the markers specialists use to date an oriental rug, and together they place this piece firmly in turn of the millennium village workshop production.