9'10" x 12'10" Persian Sarouk Rug | Red Field Floral Medallion | Dense Wool Pile in Excellent Condition

This 9'10" x 12'10" Sarouk is the rug most people picture when they picture a Persian rug: a red orange field filled from edge to edge with curling vine work, a navy and ivory star medallion anchoring the center, and a wide navy border closing it in. The pile is wool cut at 3/8 inch, heavy and close underfoot, with the quiet sheen that good Sarouk wool holds for decades. Condition is excellent, the pile stands full and even across the field, and the selvedges and cotton fringe are clean and intact. It ships with our certificate of authenticity. Among 10x13 Persian rugs this is a true room-size piece, and if you want the background on the weave before you decide, our guide to Persian Sarouk rugs covers the type in depth.

Design and Motifs

A single pointed star medallion sits dead center, its core an ivory cartouche built around an 8 petal rosette, ringed by navy lobes that are outlined in thin red and filled with small scrolling leaf forms. Four quarter medallions answer it in the 4 corners, drawn in mid blue with large palmettes and the same outlined scrollwork, so the eye reads a clean oval of open red between medallion and spandrels. The field itself is never actually open: it carries a dense all over vine, small rosettes, bud sprays and serrated leaves repeating in careful mirror symmetry down both halves of the rug. The main border is wide and navy, set with alternating palmettes and cloud band scrolls, and it is flanked by narrow guard stripes of ivory and gold carrying a run of small 4 petal flowers. A plain red outer band and a fine barber pole stripe finish the edge, the sort of detail that tells you the weaver was following a proper cartoon rather than improvising.

Red Orange, Navy Blue and Mid Blue

The dominant note is red orange, a warm tomato to brick tone that carries the whole field and repeats in the plain outer band and in the thin outlines that trace every medallion lobe. Against it the main border is navy blue so deep it reads nearly black at a distance, which is what gives the rug its weight and frame. Mid blue does the connecting work: it fills the corner spandrels, picks out leaves and rosette centers in the field, and runs through the guard stripes so the border never feels cut off from the middle. Ivory supplies the breathing room, in the medallion core, the flower heads scattered through the vine and the narrow bands either side of the border, and there are small hits of gold, saffron, teal green and a soft rose in the flower work that you only see up close. For buyers shopping red and burgundy Persian rugs, this is the classic warm red palette rather than a cool wine tone, and it sits easily with wood floors, leather and brass.

Sarouk: The Weaving Town and the Weave Itself

Sarouk is a village in central Persia, in the Farahan district north of Arak, and its weavers built a reputation on two things: curvilinear drawing borrowed from the city workshop tradition, and a build quality heavy enough to survive generations of family traffic. The foundation is cotton, the knotting is tight and regular, and the wool is spun thick, then cut at 3/8 inch so the pile stands up instead of flattening. Turn the rug over, as in the final photograph, and you can see the knot rows marching evenly across the back, with the shop ruler and the Authentic Handmade label for scale. That combination of fine floral drawing on a hard-wearing village foundation is exactly why Sarouk became the Persian rug of choice for American houses from the 1920s onward, and why a piece in this condition at 9'10" x 12'10" is still a working floor rug rather than a wall piece.