7'3" x 10'4" Persian Sarouk Rug | All Over Floral Vines on Near-Black Field | Excellent Condition

Sarouk weavers are known for rose, ivory and madder grounds, so a field this dark is the first thing a dealer notices about this piece. The ground reads almost black under room light, and against it the floral drawing looks like embroidery on velvet. At 7'3" x 10'4" it belongs with the most practical 7x10 Persian rugs, large enough to seat a sofa and two chairs with all legs on the wool, compact enough to leave a frame of floor showing in a standard room. The handle is firm, the 3/8" wool pile is full and even edge to edge, and the ivory cotton fringe is intact at both ends. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a hand-knotted Persian Sarouk.

Design and Motifs

There is no medallion here. The field carries an all over floral lattice built from heavy salmon vines that curl back on themselves into closed spirals, each spiral enclosing a small cream blossom. Where the vines meet they throw up crowned palmette heads flanked by curved leaves, and between them sit upright sprays of red carnations, 8 petal cream rosettes with dark centers, saffron and orange composite flowers, and tiny pale blue buds on stems. The drawing mirrors left to right and repeats up the length in 4 clear bands, so the pattern reads as ordered rather than busy. The main border runs a salmon ground with alternating ivory and green palmettes and reversing serrated leaves, set between two blue-green floral guard bands of small rose heads. Narrow ivory saw-tooth stripes separate every band, and a slim dark outline closes the whole rug at the selvage.

The Color: Near-Black Ground Against Salmon and Cream

The field is the darkest value in the rug, a dense near-black that carries a faint midnight blue cast where the light strikes the pile at an angle. Everything else is tuned against it. The vine work and the wide outer border are a warm salmon that sits between coral and old rose, lighter and dustier in the border than in the field scrolls. Cream and ivory do the heavy lifting on the flower heads and give the pattern its glow at a distance. The reds are a soft madder rather than a hot crimson, used for the carnation sprays and the little bud clusters. Greens run from sage to a deep bottle tone in the leaves, the blues appear as teal in the guard bands and a clear pale blue in the smallest buds, and orange shows up in the apricot and saffron centers of the larger rosettes. The overall effect is dark, warm and rich, the kind of palette that works with walnut floors, navy upholstery and brass.

Sarouk Origin and Weaving Quality

Sarouk is a village in the highlands near Arak in west-central Persia, and it gave its name to one of the most commercially successful weaving groups in the country. Persian Sarouk rugs are built on a cotton foundation with a tightly packed wool pile and a heavy, substantial handle, which is why so many of them are still in service in American homes three generations after they were bought. This example shows the traits that separate good Sarouk work from ordinary village weaving: the curved vines hold their line without wobbling, the mirrored halves of the field line up band for band, the border corners resolve cleanly at all 4 corners instead of being cut off mid-motif, and the knotting is fine and regular enough to render flower heads only an inch or two across with 4 or 5 distinct colors inside each one. The wool has the natural lanolin sheen the region is known for, and the pile stands level across the whole rug with no low spots or restoration.