7'6" x 10'10" Persian Sarouk Rug | Raspberry Red Field | Navy Lobed Medallion | Excellent Pile

Laid out flat, this 7'6" x 10'10" piece shows exactly why Persian Sarouk rugs became a fixture in American homes a century ago and never left. A raspberry red field carries a navy lobed medallion drawn with a steady hand, leafy sprays fan out toward the 4 corners, and a wide navy border frames the whole thing without crowding it. The pile is thick wool on a cotton foundation, the handle is heavy and substantial, and the condition is excellent with full pile from end to end and clean ivory fringe at both ends. It ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted Persian weaving.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a stepped, lobed medallion built in layers: an ivory cruciform rosette at the core, then a salmon frame of small blossoms, then a deep navy shell outlined in teal and brown. Long serrated leaves and feathery fern sprays radiate from the medallion into the open red field, mixed with carnation heads, small tulip buds and ivory comma shapes that give the drawing its movement. Above and below the medallion sit pendant palmettes and a cluster of 8 petal rosettes on a slender stem. Navy spandrels cover the 4 corners of the field, each filled with curling vine and a reciprocal ivory edge that reads almost like lace against the red. The main border is navy, drawn with alternating palmettes and upright floral bouquets, and it is held between narrow guard stripes of rosettes on a raspberry ground and a fine sawtooth minor stripe. It is a village interpretation of a formal workshop layout, which is what gives this pattern its warmth among 8x11 Persian rugs.

A Raspberry Red Field Against Deep Navy

The field is the story here. It is a cool raspberry red rather than a brick or tomato red, the kind of saturated madder tone that shifts between crimson and deep rose as the light moves across the pile. Against it, the navy of the medallion, spandrels and main border reads almost black in low light and resolves into a clear midnight blue up close. The accents do the work of softening the contrast: salmon and dusty rose in the medallion frame and border rosettes, ivory in the cruciform center, the reciprocal corner edging and the fringe, teal and sea green through the leaves and flower centers, and warm brown in the vine work and outer stripe. A few touches of soft gold appear in the border bouquets. Set in a room with cream walls, dark wood or brass, it behaves like one of those confident red and burgundy Persian rugs that anchors everything placed on it.

Sarouk Weaving and Build Quality

Sarouk weaving comes from the villages around Arak in west central Persia, a district that has produced floor rugs for the Western market longer than almost anywhere else in the country. The formula is consistent: a tightly spun cotton warp and weft, a heavy wool pile clipped on the longer side, and curvilinear court drawing simplified into something a village loom can carry at scale. The back of this rug, shown with a ruler in the last photograph, is even and regular across the width, with straight selvages and no bulging or waving at the ends, which is the sign of a well tensioned loom rather than a hurried one. Sarouk wool is springy and takes dye deeply, so the pile holds color and recovers from footfall instead of matting. At 7'6" x 10'10" this is a true living space rug with decades of service left in it, and the full pile means that service has barely started.