9'1" x 12'8" Persian Sarough Rug | Coral Red Field, Ivory Medallion | Excellent Condition

Measuring 9'1" x 12'8", this Persian Sarough rug is a semi antique village piece with the weight and honesty that collectors look for in this group: a cotton foundation, a 3/8" wool pile that still stands full and even across the whole field, and original ends and sides. The drawing is the classic Sarough formula, a coral red ground carrying a dense all over floral scheme with a single lobed ivory and blue medallion holding the center. It reads formal from across a room and surprisingly relaxed up close, because the vine work is hand drawn and never quite repeats. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity recording the origin, materials, knotting and measurements of this exact piece.

Design and Motifs

The field is worked as a continuous floral lattice rather than an open ground: curling vines, serrated leaves, palmettes and small rosettes cover the red from selvage to selvage, with larger navy and ivory flower heads anchoring the 4 corners and the midpoints of the field. At the center sits a lobed diamond medallion, ivory outlined and filled with a deep blue cartouche that carries an 8 petal rosette at its heart, flanked by small pendant finials top and bottom. Ivory corner spandrels repeat the same blossoms on a lighter ground and frame the whole composition. The main border is a broad navy band of alternating turtle palmettes and hooked vine, and it is bracketed by narrow guard stripes of connected rosettes on red and cream. Look at the corner detail photograph and you can see how the weaver resolved the border turn by hand, a small irregularity that is the signature of genuine village work.

A Coral Red Field Against Navy and Ivory

The dominant color is a warm coral red orange, bright and clear rather than brick or maroon, and it shifts slightly with the nap so the rug looks a shade lighter from one end of the room and deeper from the other. Against that ground the weaver set an indigo to midnight navy that carries the main border and the medallion core, plus a soft undyed ivory that does the outlining work: the medallion frame, the spandrels, the leaf edges and the small blossoms scattered through the field. Secondary notes are easy to miss at a distance but obvious in the close ups, a light sky blue in the flower petals, a muted sage green in the guard stripes and leaf stems, tan and butter yellow in the corner cartouches, and small touches of aubergine and rose in the rosette centers. The outer edge finishes in the same coral red, and the ends are plain ivory cotton fringe. It is a confident, saturated palette that works with dark wood, warm white walls and brass, and it gives a large room an immediate focal point.

Sarough Weaving in Central Persia

Sarough weaving comes out of the villages around Arak in central Persia, a region that has supplied American homes with heavy, floral, hard wearing rugs for more than a century. The Sarough recipe is simple and effective: a firm cotton warp and weft, a thick and tightly packed wool pile, and a floral vocabulary borrowed from the city ateliers but drawn with a village hand. That combination is why these rugs survive decades of real use in dining rooms and entry halls while finer, thinner weaves give out. The back of this piece shows a tight, regular knot line with no repairs and no reweaving, and the pile depth is consistent corner to corner, which is what puts it in excellent condition rather than merely good. At 9'1" x 12'8" it belongs with the large Persian rugs meant to sit under a full seating group or a 10 seat table, with the borders left visible on all 4 sides.