9'4" x 13' Persian Sarouk Mahallat Rug | Red Field Navy Medallion | Circa 1980s, Excellent Condition

This is a room-filling 9'4" x 13' floral medallion rug woven in the Mahallat district in the 1980s, the kind of piece that Persian Sarouk rugs built their reputation on: a heavy wool pile over a cotton foundation, drawing that stays crisp from corner to corner, and color that has settled into that mellow semi-antique tone wool only reaches with time. The pile still stands tall across the whole field, the ends and red wool selvages are sound, and both ivory fringes are original and even. At just under 10 feet by 13 it covers a full seating group or seats a 10-person table with the chairs pulled back, which puts it squarely in the large Persian rugs bracket most buyers are hunting for. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and age.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a tall lobed medallion on a navy ground, built around a small rose-brown inner panel with a stepped lattice of tiny blossoms and finished top and bottom with pointed finials. Around it the red field runs edge to edge with curled sickle leaves, split arabesques, lotus palmettes and small 8 petal rosettes, drawn in mirrored repeats so the pattern reads as one continuous vine rather than rows. Four corner spandrels in mid-blue carry the same vine in miniature and frame the field cleanly. The main border is a navy band of large palmettes and rosettes linked by a red meander, flanked by blue guard stripes of alternating buds and a pair of very fine reciprocal minor stripes in black and ivory. Two small woven cartouches sit near the lower corners of the field, the traditional spot a Persian weaver marks the finished piece.

A Deep Red Field Framed in Indigo and Blue

The field is a true madder-toned red, closer to tomato in the daylight shots and deepening toward crimson where the pile leans away from the light, with soft horizontal abrash that proves hand-dyed yarn. Against it the medallion and the main border read as a near-black indigo navy, which is what gives this rug its weight on a pale floor. The secondary blues do the lifting: a clear mid-blue to teal in the spandrels and guard stripes, lighter where the pile has burnished. Salmon and apricot carry the palmettes and leaf outlines, with ivory tracery, a little pale green in the small border buds, and that rose-brown note at the medallion core. If a saturated palette is your starting point, this sits comfortably with other red and burgundy Persian rugs, though the blue content here is unusually generous.

Mahallat Weaving in the Sarouk Tradition

Mahallat lies in Markazi province in central Persia, in the same weaving belt as Sarouk and Arak, and its looms work to the Sarouk formula: a cotton warp and weft, a thick wool pile knotted tight and clipped fairly high, and a floral medallion cartoon inherited from the workshops nearby. The back photos show the result, rows packed evenly with no slack or wandering lines across a 13 foot length, which takes two experienced weavers a long season to hold steady. That build is the practical argument for this rug. A dense Sarouk Mahallat pile on cotton is the Persian weave that takes decades of real furniture and foot traffic without going thin, and this one has clearly been kept well: the wool is lustrous, the pile depth is consistent, and there is no low area anywhere in the field.