9'3" x 11'10" Serapi Rug | Navy Medallion Design | Hand-Knotted Wool from India

This 9'3" x 11'10" Serapi is a hand-knotted Oriental rug woven in India on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" wool pile, and it is one of the cleanest renderings of the Serapi formula we stock in this size. The drawing is fully geometric, the wool has a dry matte sheen that takes light without glare, and the piece has never been used. The back photograph shows the weave laid open with a pencil for scale, so you can see the knot lines running straight and even from selvage to selvage. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is hand-knotted, along with its size, materials and origin.

Design and Motifs

The field is built around a large stepped medallion with 8 points, the hallmark of the Serapi drawing, set inside a coral frame and anchored by a small square center panel with a pale sage ground and a single ivory rosette. Four cream cartouches sit inside the medallion, each one filled with a curling vine and a red flower head, and between them run notched lancet leaves and serrated palmettes in green, brown and rust. The navy field around the medallion carries large angular leaf forms and blossoms drawn with straight lines and hard corners rather than curves, which is exactly what separates this family from the floral city weaves. Two flanking cartouches extend left and right, and the 4 corner spandrels repeat the field vocabulary in ivory and sage. The main border runs a rosette and bracket rhythm on a coral ground, flanked by narrow ivory guard bands with a running vine. Buyers who want more of this angular, architectural drawing should look at our geometric medallion rugs.

Color: Navy Ground with Coral, Sage and Gold

The dominant color is a deep navy blue, almost ink at the center of the field and slightly warmer where the pile catches light, and it does the heavy lifting of holding the pattern together. Against it the weaver has set a brick coral red for the medallion frame, the spandrel grounds and the main border, a soft sage grey that reads almost powder blue in the medallion and the leaf forms, and a buttery ivory that carries the cartouches, the guard stripes and the outlining. Accents of leaf green, gold ochre and a russet brown appear in the palmettes and rosettes, and small touches of tomato red punctuate the flower heads. It is a saturated but not loud palette: the navy keeps it grounded, the ivory keeps it light, and the coral gives it warmth. It sits comfortably with walnut and oak furniture, with cream or clay walls, and with the mixed metal finishes common in traditional and transitional rooms. For more options at this footprint, see our 9x12 area rugs.

Origin and Weaving Quality

Serapi is a design name, and this rug is honestly made in India, where the best contemporary hand-knotted weaving in the world is now produced. Indian workshops have spent decades building the loom discipline, the vegetable-toned dyeing and the wool sourcing needed to carry a village-style geometric design at this scale, and this piece shows it: the medallion sits square, the borders turn cleanly at all 4 corners, and the knot count holds steady across a 111" width where lesser weaving would drift. The 3/8" wool pile is dense enough to stand up to a busy household and short enough to keep the outlines crisp, and the cotton warp and weft give the rug the flat, obedient lie that makes it easy to place under furniture. Condition is excellent and the rug has never been on a floor, so the full depth of the pile and the full strength of the dyes are still ahead of it.