7'3" x 11' Persian Sarough Rug | All Over Floral Sarouk Design | 1990s Wool Pile in Excellent Condition

This is a classic room-size Persian Sarough rug from the 1990's, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile that still stands upright and full across the whole field. At 7'3" x 11" it sits in the most usable proportion a traditional rug comes in, wide enough to carry a sofa and two chairs and long enough to run under a 6 seat dining table with chairs pulled back. The drawing is the Sarouk formula at its most recognizable: a densely flowered red ground held inside a deep navy border of rosettes and vine, with no central medallion competing for attention. The pile shows even wear, the selvages are intact, and the ivory cotton fringe is clean and full, as the end photographs show. Every rug we ship travels with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a hand-knotted piece of Persian origin.

Design and Motifs

The field is an all over floral design built from detached sprays: small bouquets of rounded blossoms and buds, each on its own thin stem with serrated leaves, repeated in staggered rows so the pattern reads continuous rather than mirrored. Look closely at the center and a faint lozenge emerges where 4 larger bouquets turn inward and a small diamond cartouche sits at the middle, an implied medallion rather than a drawn one, which is a trait weavers of this design use to keep a long field from feeling empty. Curling arabesque vines in gold and beige thread between the bouquets and tie the rows together. The main border is a navy ground carrying alternating 8 petal rosettes and large lobed palmettes linked by a leafy meander, flanked by a cream guard stripe of tiny paired rosettes and a narrow inner stripe of dart and leaf. Each of the 4 corners resolves cleanly, with the border turn worked out rather than cut off, which is a mark of a weaver following a proper cartoon.

The Color Palette

The ground is a warm red with a coral cast, the softer brick tone that makes 1990's Sarouk weaving so easy to live with next to walnut floors, oak paneling and cream upholstery. Against that field the flowers are drawn in three clear blues: a mid teal that does most of the work in the petals, a lighter powder blue in the small buds, and a near black navy used for the darkest blossom centers and the leaf tips. Cream and ivory outline the larger bouquets and give the pattern its lift, while a dull antique gold and a soft beige carry the vines and the smaller leaves. The border reverses the balance, putting cream and teal rosettes with red and gold centers onto a dense navy ground, so the rug frames itself and the red field stops at a hard edge instead of bleeding into the room. Buyers shopping red Persian rugs should note how much blue is actually present here: at conversational distance the rug reads red and navy, and only up close does the teal and gold detail separate out.

Sarough Weaving in Central Persia

Sarough is a weaving district in central Persia, in the countryside around Arak, and it built its reputation in the American market on exactly this combination: a floral field drawn with city precision, woven on a heavy cotton foundation, finished with a thick wool pile that takes decades of traffic without thinning. The back of this piece, shown against a ruler in the last photograph, is tight and regular with straight, even rows and no slack or waviness, the sign of a loom kept under proper tension and a weaver who packed each row down hard. The wool is local, spun with enough natural lanolin to hold a low sheen, which is why the red still looks saturated rather than chalky after 30 plus years. A 3/8" pile at this scale means the rug has plenty of life left in it, and the intact selvages and full fringe mean nothing has been reduced or reworked to make it presentable.