9'8" x 12'11" Antique Persian Ferahan Sarouk Rug | Rust Field, Ivory Geometric Medallion | 1940s

This is a genuine 1940s Persian Ferahan Sarouk rug, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and measuring 9'8" x 12'11". Eighty years on the loom floor and in use have given the rust field a soft, settled tone that no new rug can imitate, and the pile still stands evenly from end to end with the original fringes and side finishes intact. At just under 10 by 13 feet it covers a full seating group with room to spare, which puts it squarely among the most useful 10x13 Persian rugs for a living room or a formal dining table. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, age, materials and construction.

Design and Motifs

The field carries a large stepped medallion built from an ivory center, a ring of navy lobes and a pair of long hooked pendants that reach toward each end of the rug. Inside the medallion core sits a small red and ivory cartouche with a dark square at its heart, framed by 8 petal rosettes and leaf forms drawn in the angular village manner, straight lines and stepped outlines rather than curved vine. Around it the rust ground fills with palmettes, serrated leaves, blossoming sprays and small blue rosettes, each one repeated but never quite identical, which is the mark of weavers working from memory rather than a strict cartoon. Ivory spandrels close the 4 corners with salmon and navy palmette clusters, and the wide navy main border runs a turtle palmette and vine pattern flanked by ivory and camel guard stripes of tiny flower heads.

A Palette of Rust, Indigo and Ivory

Color is the reason this piece reads as antique before you look at anything else. The field is a warm rust that shifts between brick and terracotta across the width, the natural abrash of hand-dyed wool from separate dye lots. Against it the borders and medallion lobes hold a deep indigo navy, while lighter sky and teal blues appear in the pendants and in the small floral fillers. Ivory does the structural work, outlining the medallion, opening up the 4 corner spandrels and separating the border bands so the pattern never crowds. Softer accents carry the rest: salmon pink in the palmettes, a muted sage and olive green in the leaves, and camel and old gold in the guard stripes and the narrow outer band. Seen from a low angle the pile shows how much of this color is in the wool itself rather than on the surface.

Ferahan Sarouk Weaving in West Central Persia

The Ferahan plain lies north of Arak in west central Persia, a district whose looms supplied the western market for well over a century before the Sarouk workshops of the same region took over the name. Weaving there is village work in the best sense: a firm cotton foundation, tough highland wool spun locally, and a knot count set for longevity rather than for miniature detail. That is what you can feel in the handle of this rug, a dense, slightly heavy body that lies flat and takes traffic without flattening. The 1940s date puts it right at the end of the classic period, and the tell-tale signs of that era, the natural dye abrash, the hand-spun wool and the honest asymmetries in the drawing, are the same ones used in dating an antique Oriental rug.