8'9" x 10'6" Persian Sarouk Rug | Antique 1930s All Over Floral | Woven Persian Poetry Cartouches

Inscribed rugs are uncommon, and one that carries full verses of poetry around all 4 sides is a piece you will not see twice in a season. This 8'9" x 10'6" example dates to the 1930s and belongs to the best period of antique Persian Sarouk rugs, when the weavers of central Persia were working glossy, long-staple wool over a cotton foundation and drawing floral sprays with a painter's freedom. The wool has aged into the silky, light-catching pile you can see in the fold shots, the colors have mellowed without going flat, and the rug lies straight and square with strong selvedges and original fringe. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity that records origin, age, materials and size.

Design and Motifs

There is no medallion. The field is an open, all over composition of detached floral sprays: fan shaped palmettes, 8 petal rosettes, tulip and carnation heads, small blue blossoms and long serrated leaves that curl back on themselves, arranged in mirrored pairs along the central axis so the pattern reads as ordered rather than scattered. Sinuous vines and a few cloudband style scrolls fill the corners. The main border is the reason this rug stands apart: a navy ground carrying gold cartouches of Persian poetry in flowing nastaliq script, 4 along each end and 5 down each side, separated by floral panels and framed by ivory guard stripes of turning leaf and blossom. At the corners the drawing resolves into a red shield shaped panel, a detail that takes a skilled cartoon to bring around neatly.

The Deep Red Field, Navy Border and Green Foliage

The ground is a deep red that carries a warm salmon and terracotta lustre where the light runs down the pile, which is exactly what old Sarouk wool does as it ages: the surface shifts between brick, rose and rust depending on where you stand. Against it the drawing is worked in indigo and mid blue, olive and grass green, saffron and pale butter yellow, ivory, soft rose and an occasional aubergine. The main border is a true dark indigo, dense enough to make the gold cartouches read clearly from across a room, while the guard borders are a pale straw ivory that lifts the whole frame. The palette is entirely natural in feel, with subtle abrash across the field that gives the red depth rather than uniformity.

Sarouk Weaving in Central Persia

Sarouk is a weaving town in the Arak district of central Persia, and by the 1920s and 1930s its workshops were producing the most sought after room size floral rugs in the country, built on a cotton warp and weft with a heavy, tightly packed wool pile that wears for generations. This piece is a classic of that era: Persian drawing, double wefted construction, and a pile still thick enough to stand on daily. The inscribed border points to a commissioned or presentation piece rather than ordinary production, since poetry cartouches demand a custom cartoon and a weaver literate enough to follow it. If you want to understand what the wool, weave and dyes tell you about a rug of this period, our guide on how to date an oriental rug walks through the same evidence we used here.