8' x 10' Serapi Rug | Ivory Field, Navy Stepped Medallion | New Natural Wool, Made in India

This is a new, never used hand-knotted Serapi in natural wool, woven on a cotton foundation and finished at a true 8' x 10', which is the most requested footprint we sell and one of the easiest to place in a standard seating area. The drawing is large in scale and confident: one stepped navy medallion anchored on an ivory field, heavy serrated leaves, and a wide salmon border that carries full palmettes and rosettes rather than fussy small filler. The wool is the reason to look twice at this one. It is springy, lightly lustrous, and already shows the soft color break that collectors look for in village-style weaving, visible in the close pile shots where the coral border shifts gently from one pass to the next. Pile depth is even edge to edge, the selvages are tight, and both ends are finished with clean ivory fringe. Every rug we ship, including this one, comes with a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is 100% hand-knotted. If you are comparing options at this footprint, our full run of 8x10 Oriental rugs shows how this piece sits against the rest of the collection.

Design and Motifs

The Serapi pattern is built on straight lines and stepped outlines, and this weaver kept the geometry crisp. At the center sits a small ivory square holding an 8 petal rosette, ringed by a pearl band of navy and white dots. That square sits inside a sage green cruciform cartouche, which in turn sits inside a broad navy medallion whose 4 arms each enclose a coral panel with a light blue inner tile. Two pendant palmettes extend from the top and bottom of the medallion in dark navy, each tipped with an ivory and coral flower head. The ivory field around the medallion is drawn with angular vine work, standing tulips, vase forms and small pitched-roof house motifs, a charming village touch repeated at the 4 corners of the field. The field boundary itself is stepped rather than curved, and the ivory spandrels push out into a salmon surround that holds large light blue palmette leaves and hooked vine. The main border runs in coral with alternating sage rosettes and navy cartouche shields, framed by olive and ivory minor borders with running leaf and bud. If angular drawing of this type is what you are after, it is worth seeing the rest of our geometric medallion rugs as well.

Beige, Coral, Navy and Green: Reading the Palette

The field is a warm beige that reads closer to ivory and oatmeal under daylight, with no pink cast, which is what keeps this rug easy next to white trim and natural oak. Against it the border is a muted coral, somewhere between salmon and soft terracotta, and the close pile photographs show it breaking lighter and darker across the weave in the way hand-spun, naturally dyed wool does. The medallion is a deep navy blue that goes almost aubergine in low light, and it is the darkest value in the rug by a wide margin, which is exactly why the ivory field looks as bright as it does. Supporting colors do the quiet work: sage and olive green in the cruciform center, the minor borders and the big leaf forms; a chalky light blue in the medallion tiles, spandrel palmettes and border rosettes; and a dull gold that outlines vine tips and leaf stems. A few ivory and cream highlights sit inside the coral panels and border shields. Nothing here is bright or synthetic looking, and the overall effect is soft and sunwashed rather than high contrast, which suits a room with a lot of natural light. Browse more beige and ivory rugs if that is the direction your room needs.

Made in India: Weaving Town and Quality

This rug was made in India, and we say that with confidence rather than apology. India is where most of the world's good contemporary hand-knotted work is now produced, and the best Indian workshops weave the classic Serapi medallion vocabulary at a standard that holds its own in any room. The tell is in the handle: hand-spun natural wool with real lanolin left in it, dyed in small lots so the color moves slightly, knotted on a cotton warp with a dense, even back. You can see the knot structure in the folded corner photograph, tight and regular, with crisp outlines where navy meets ivory and no bleeding between colors. The pile is cut at a medium height, which is the right choice for a design like this: short enough to keep the stepped outlines sharp, long enough to give the surface weight underfoot and take decades of traffic. For a plain-language explanation of where a piece like this sits, our guide to what separates a Persian rug from a broader Oriental rug is a useful read before you buy.