9'6" x 13'2" Persian Sarough Rug | Dark Red Floral Medallion | Excellent Condition

This is a proper room size piece at 9'6" x 13'2", woven entirely by hand in wool on a cotton foundation with a full 3/8" pile that still stands up straight across the whole field. What sells it in person is the balance: a single lobed diamond medallion sitting dead center, a field of scrolling vinework that never repeats mechanically, and mid blue spandrels that lift all 4 corners away from the red. The wool has the faint sheen that comes from decades of good spinning and clean washing, and the reverse in the last photograph shows tidy, upright rows with no repairs and no gaps. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity documenting the origin, materials and hand-knotted construction, and if you want the wider background before you buy, our guide to Persian Sarough rugs covers how these weavings are built and why they wear the way they do.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is classic curvilinear Sarough. At the center sits a navy lobed diamond medallion with stepped points top and bottom, filled with a small ivory cartouche and a single 4 petal rosette at its heart, then ringed by fine serrated leaves and pale rose tendrils. Around it the red ground carries a dense all-over floral layout of palmettes, open lotus blossoms, split arabesque leaves and thin scrolling vines that link one bloom to the next without crowding. Two navy pendants extend from the medallion along the long axis, a detail the weaver used to keep the eye traveling down the length of the rug. The 4 spandrels are drawn on a mid blue ground with matching vinework, giving the field an implied oval frame. The main border runs a deep navy ground with alternating palmettes and rosettes, and it is held on both sides by pale blue minor stripes and narrow ivory guard stripes with a running vine, so the edges read crisp rather than heavy.

Color Palette: Dark Red, Mid Blue and Deep Brown

The field is a true dark red with a cool, slightly cherry cast rather than a brick or orange tone, and it holds that value evenly from end to end. Against it the mid blue of the spandrels and the minor stripes reads almost sky blue where the light catches the pile, while the borders and the medallion drop to a dark navy that reads nearly brown-black in the shaded photographs, which is where the dark brown in the color list comes from. The detail work is what makes the palette sing: ivory and cream outline nearly every vine and leaf, soft rose and pale mauve fill the larger palmettes, small notes of sage green sit inside the blossoms, and a few deliberate touches of rust and apricot appear in the upper and lower spandrels. Buyers shopping red and burgundy Persian rugs will find this one sits comfortably with warm woods, brass and cream walls, and the blue content keeps it from going too warm in a room with a lot of daylight.

Origin and Weaving Quality

Sarough weaving comes out of the villages of Markazi province in central Persia, around the town of Saruk north of Arak, where the workshops built their name on two things: curvilinear floral drawing borrowed from the old city ateliers, and a heavy, tightly packed wool pile that survives generations of traffic. That combination is visible here. The knots are set close and evenly on a cotton warp, the beat-down is firm, and the 3/8" pile is dense enough that the rug lies flat and stays put under furniture without slipping or rippling. The selvages are intact, the ends are secure with the original flat woven finish and fringe, and the back shows clean, legible rows with no reweaving. At this scale it is a dining room or living room rug rather than an accent piece, and it belongs with the other 10x13 Persian rugs we keep for full furniture layouts: a 9 foot sofa, 2 chairs and a coffee table sit inside the field with border showing on all 4 sides.