9'5" x 12'10" Persian Sarouk Rug | Shah Abbasi Floral Medallion | Excellent Condition

Measuring 9'5" x 12'10", this Persian Sarouk rug is a full room-size floral piece with the weight and body you expect from central Persian village work: a heavy 3/8" wool pile knotted on a cotton foundation, squarely cut sides and a clean ivory fringe at both ends. The drawing is classic Sarouk, a single star medallion floated on a densely flowered red field and framed by a deep navy palmette border. It sits comfortably in the class of large Persian rugs that anchor a whole room rather than sit under a coffee table, and the pile is even from end to end with no thin areas or repairs. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The center is an 8 point star medallion, ivory at the core with a small red and gold rosette at the very middle, set into a navy cushion of scrolling arabesque that steps outward in cross shapes rather than a smooth oval. Slender pendants run off the top and bottom of the medallion into the field. Around it the red ground is worked edge to edge with Shah Abbasi palmettes, curling saz leaves, cloudband scrolls and small 8 petal rosettes on a fine connecting vine, so the field never reads as empty even at this scale. Four quarter medallions mark the corners of the inner panel, and a thin ivory line traces the field like a drawn frame. The main border is a navy band of alternating palmettes and vine turns, flanked by light blue guard stripes of small square rosettes and a narrow saw-tooth stripe, with a plain red outer edge finishing the rug.

A Warm Red Field Against Navy and Ivory

The field is a warm true red, closer to tomato than to burgundy, and it carries a soft sheen where the wool catches light along the pile direction. Against it the border reads almost black-navy, which is what gives the rug its depth from across a room. Ivory does the drawing work: it outlines the medallion, picks out the corner quarters and lights the guard stripes so the composition stays legible. Inside the flowers there is more color than a first glance suggests, with sky blue, a cool teal green, saffron and mustard gold, soft rose and small notes of brown appearing in the palmette hearts and rosette centers. The overall effect is rich and traditional, red-dominant with blue structure, and it works against both dark hardwood and pale oak floors as the showroom photographs show.

Sarouk Weaving in Central Persia

Sarouk is a village in the Markazi region of central Persia, north of Arak, and its name has carried weight in the American market for more than a century because of how these rugs are built. Weavers there use a heavy, tightly packed wool pile over a cotton warp and weft, producing a rug with real mass underfoot that holds its shape under furniture and traffic for generations. The back of this piece, shown against the ruler, has the tidy squared knot rows and firm handle typical of good Sarouk work, and the 3/8" pile height means there is plenty of wool left to wear. Design-wise the Sarouk workshops stayed loyal to the curvilinear court repertoire of palmette, vine and central medallion rather than the angular village drawing of the northwest, which is why a rug like this reads formal even though it was woven in a village.