7'2" x 9'4" Persian Sarouk Rug | Soft Tomato Red Floral Medallion | 1990s Wool Pile

This is a classic room-size floral piece from the Sarouk weaving tradition, hand-knotted in the 1990's on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" wool pile that still stands full and even across the whole field. It measures 7'2" x 9'4", a size that sits comfortably under a sofa grouping or a 6 seat dining table without crowding the walls. The drawing is dense and confident: a small ivory and navy diamond medallion anchoring a soft tomato red field that is covered corner to corner in flowering sprays, curling leaves and rosettes, then framed by a deep navy main border. If you want the background on the type before you buy, our Persian Sarouk rugs guide covers how these were woven and how to read the quality. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted and Persian in origin.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a small pointed diamond medallion built in three layers: a rose colored core with an 8 petal rosette at its heart, a cream ring of scrolling vine and blossoms around it, and a navy cartouche shaped outer lobe carrying pink and cream flower heads. Above and below it, two slim navy pendants run out along the long axis. The field around the medallion is not left open. It is filled with an all-over lattice of detached floral sprays, serrated palmettes, curling acanthus leaves and small star rosettes, drawn in the curvilinear Sarouk manner where every stem bends rather than steps. The 4 corner spandrels break to a pale sage and ivory ground, which lifts the corners away from the red and gives the eye somewhere to rest. The border system runs 7 bands deep: a broad navy main border of alternating palmettes and flowering stems, flanked by cream and pale blue guard stripes with a running vine, then narrow reciprocal minor bands out to the selvage. Close inspection of the corner shows the borders turning cleanly, which is the mark of a weaver working to a drawn cartoon rather than improvising.

A Soft Tomato Red Field With Navy and Cream

The dominant color is a soft tomato red, warmer and lighter than the blood reds you see on Kashan and Sarouk pieces from earlier decades, closer to a terracotta or salmon rose where the light catches the pile. Against it, the main border and the medallion lobe are a very dark navy blue that goes almost black in the shadowed photographs. Cream and ivory carry the medallion core, the spandrels and the outer guard stripes, and those ivory passages are what keep the rug from reading heavy. The floral detail brings in the rest of the palette: dusty pink and rose for the larger blossoms, a pale sage and olive green for the leaves and stems, warm beige in the vine work, and deep burgundy for the small dark flower heads scattered across the field. Pale sky blue appears in the smaller rosettes, a quiet accent that repeats in the border. It is a warm, forgiving color scheme that sits well on hardwood and works with cream, camel, charcoal and walnut furniture. If you are shopping the tone rather than the type, browse more red and burgundy Persian rugs.

Sarouk Weaving and Build Quality

Sarouk is a village and weaving district in west central Persia, north of Arak in Markazi province, and it built its reputation in the American market on one thing: rugs that are drawn like city pieces but built like village pieces. The weave is a dense asymmetrical knot on a cotton warp and weft, beaten down hard so the back is tight and the pile stands upright rather than flopping. That construction is why Sarouk rugs from the 1930's are still on floors today, and why a 1990's example like this one, with full pile and original ends and sides, has decades of service ahead of it. The back photograph with the ruler shows the knot count and the clean, regular knot rows, along with the original cream cotton fringe. Wool quality here is good, springy and slightly lustrous, which is what gives the red field its shift in tone between the two lighting setups. This is a rug meant to be walked on, not admired from a distance.