8' x 10'2" Jaipur Sarouk Design Rug | Cream Field with Black Floral Border | Never Used

This is a brand new, never used hand-knotted rug woven in Jaipur on a cotton foundation with a 100% wool pile, drawn in the classic Sarouk manner: an open cream field scattered with detached floral bouquets around a single flowered medallion, framed by a near black border. At 8' x 10'2" it sits in the most useful of all room sizes, and the workshop drawing here is unusually careful for a new piece, with the bouquets mirrored top to bottom and the border turning cleanly at all 4 corners. It is a genuine hand-knotted Oriental rug, not a machine made or tufted reproduction, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity. Buyers shopping 8 x 10 area rugs will find this one of the easier pieces to place, because the pale ground lifts a room rather than darkening it.

Design and Motifs

The field follows the Sarouk formula of detached sprays floating on open ground. Small bunched bouquets, grape cluster motifs and single stemmed blossoms are set in staggered rows so the eye moves across the rug instead of locking onto one point, while the center carries a round medallion built entirely out of rosettes and leafy vine rather than a solid outlined cartouche. Two slender pendant palmettes anchor the medallion at top and bottom. The main border is a wide black band of large serrated palmettes, curled acanthus leaves and open roses joined by a thin meandering vine, and it is flanked by narrow guard stripes of connected rosettes and paired leaves. The corner resolutions are properly drawn, with the border pattern turning at each corner instead of being cut off, which is the first thing to check on any new floral rug of this kind.

A Cream Field with Black, Burgundy and Green

The ground is a warm cream, closer to unbleached ivory than to stark white, and it reads slightly golden under lamplight in the close-up photographs. Against it the bouquets are worked in salmon pink, deep burgundy, olive and sage green, soft brown and small touches of near black at the flower centers, so the palette stays quiet even though 6 or 7 colors are in play. The main border is the strong contrast: a deep brownish black that makes the pink and rose blossoms glow, edged with a sand beige guard band and a sage green stripe that repeats the greens of the field. The outer selvage and the fringe finish in the same cream as the ground. In practice this is a pale rug with a dark frame, which means it brightens a room while still holding an edge against wood floors and dark furniture.

Woven in Jaipur, India

Jaipur, in Rajasthan, is one of the great weaving centers of the world today, and India now produces most of the finest contemporary hand-knotted work being made anywhere. This rug is honest about what it is: an Indian weaving of a classic Sarouk floral design, knotted by hand on a cotton warp and weft with a durable wool pile. The ruler photograph shows the knotting on the face, tight and even, with clear definition in the small flower heads and the thin vine lines, which is only possible at a respectable knot count. The wool has been clipped at a medium pile height, low enough to keep the drawing crisp and high enough to feel substantial underfoot, and the piece lies flat and square with straight sides and even fringe at both ends.