9'6" x 13' Persian Sarouk Rug | Red Field with Dark Indigo Border | Excellent Condition Wool Pile

This is a full room size Sarouk in the classic central Persian formula, 9'6" x 13' of hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile that still stands up straight across the whole field. The drawing is dense and confident: a soft grey blue lobed medallion floating on a deep red ground, ivory vine tracery running corner to corner, and a wide dark indigo border that frames the whole thing without crowding it. The back photograph shows tidy, regular knotting and clean selvages, and the handle is the heavy, substantial feel you expect from a well woven Sarouk. It sits naturally in the 10x13 Persian rug range that most formal living and dining rooms are built around. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The centre carries a pointed lobed medallion with 2 slender pendants, filled with paired arabesques, small salmon and turquoise blossoms and an ivory rosette at its heart. Around it the red field is covered edge to edge with curling vine scrolls, large serrated leaves, palmettes and open lotus heads, each one outlined in ivory so the drawing reads clearly from standing height. The 4 corner spandrels are worked in light blue with cream flowering sprays, giving the field an implied oval and softening the transition into the border. The main border is a broad dark indigo band of scrolling vinework and red arabesque tendrils punctuated by star flowers and heart shaped leaves, held between narrow guard stripes of blue and ivory rosettes on a light ground. Both halves of the field mirror each other, which tells you the weavers followed a proper workshop cartoon rather than improvising.

The Red and Dark Indigo Palette

The field is a true tomato leaning red, warm rather than brown, with the natural abrash of hand-dyed wool showing as gentle shifts of tone across the width. Against it, the border reads as a deep dark indigo that turns almost aubergine where the light falls across the pile, and that contrast is what gives the rug its depth. The secondary palette does the rest of the work: chalky ivory and cream in the vines and spandrels, a cool grey blue in the medallion, clear light blue and teal in the smaller blossoms, and small hits of gold, salmon and soft green scattered through the flower heads. Those accents keep a red rug from ever looking flat. Shown on oak parquet and again on concrete, the colours hold their character under both warm and cool light, which matters when a rug this size sets the tone for an entire room.

Sarouk Weaving in Central Persia

Sarouk is a village in the Arak district of central Persia, and its name became shorthand for one of the most durable town weaves in the country. Persian Sarough rugs are built on a heavy cotton foundation with a thick, tightly packed wool pile, which is exactly why they were the rug of choice for American dining rooms for the better part of a century and why so many of them are still in service generations later. This piece shows the traits collectors look for: even knot rows visible on the back, straight sides, wool with enough lanolin left in it to take light well, and floral drawing that stays curvilinear instead of breaking into village angles. At 9'6" x 13' it is a serious room size weave, and the condition here, with full pile and no thin areas, is what separates a rug you use for decades from one you nurse along.