8'11" x 11'9" Serapi Rug | Red & Ivory Geometric Medallion | Hand-Knotted Wool, Made in India

At 8'11" x 11'9" this Serapi is a true room size piece, wide enough to carry a full sofa group or seat a dining table with every chair still on the wool. It is hand-knotted knot by knot on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" wool pile that already shows the quiet sheen good handspun fleece develops, and the drawing is textbook Serapi: an 8 pointed navy and brick red medallion anchored on an open ivory field, deep green corner spandrels, and a broad rust red main border. Condition is excellent, the wool is full and even edge to edge, and the colors read the same on the back as they do on the face. Anyone weighing this against a softer, curvilinear traditional Oriental rug will notice how much cleaner the angular line work is here than in most village grade weaving of this type. The rug ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is 100% hand-knotted and made in India.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a stepped 8 pointed medallion with a navy heart, and inside that heart sits a small concentric rosette ringed in sky blue and ivory. Four camel ground cartouches, each filled with a curled cloud and leaf device, mark the quarters of the medallion, while sky blue lanceolate leaves push out to the points. Above and below the medallion, two tall pendants rise into the ivory field and finish in serrated blue palmettes. The field itself is not crowded: angular vines, small rosettes, birds and stylized blossoms are spaced so the ivory ground stays open, which is what gives a Serapi its calm next to busier geometric rugs. The 4 corner spandrels are drawn in green with ivory vinework, a strong contrast against the rust border. That main border alternates large palmettes with rosettes on a meandering vine, framed on both sides by sky blue guard stripes carrying a running flower and leaf chain, and the whole thing is closed by a fine ivory outer stripe.

A Red and Ivory Palette With Blues Doing the Work

Two colors set the tone. The field is a warm ivory that leans toward cream rather than white, and the medallion ground and main border are a soft brick red with a faint terracotta cast, the kind of red that sits comfortably beside oak, walnut and leather instead of shouting over them. Everything else is supporting cast, and it is the blues that make the rug work: a deep navy fills the inner medallion and the border outlines, while a pale sky blue appears in the leaves, palmettes and both guard stripes, lifting the whole composition. Sea green in the 4 corner spandrels and scattered leaf tips gives the ivory field somewhere cool to land, and camel gold in the medallion cartouches adds warmth at the center. Look closely and you will find small notes of soft rose, cocoa brown and a chalky blue green in the rosettes. The back photograph shows the same clear reds and blues running straight through the knot, which is the simplest proof that these are stable, well dyed wools.

Woven in India in the Serapi Tradition

India is where most of the world's best contemporary hand-knotted weaving is now done, and this rug is a fair example of why. The Serapi layout, a large stepped medallion on an open field with heavy corner spandrels, was built for exactly this kind of hard wearing wool weave, and the workshop that made this piece has kept the angular drawing honest: straight lines stay straight, the stepped outlines meet cleanly at the corners, and the border repeat turns without the pattern collapsing. The pile is cut at 3/8", short enough to keep the detail crisp and long enough to take real traffic, and the cotton foundation gives the rug a flat, obedient lie that makes it easy to place. Practically speaking it lands in the most requested format we sell, the 9x12 area rug footprint, so it fits standard great rooms and dining rooms without a custom pad or an awkward gap along the walls.