9'8" x 12'8" Persian Sarouk Rug | Rose Red Open Field | Ivory Spandrels | Excellent Condition

This 9'8" x 12'8" Persian Sarouk is built around a single decision: leave the field open. The rose red ground runs almost bare between the layered central medallion and the 4 ivory spandrels, which means the drawing has to be right, because there is no busy vine work to hide behind. Hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile, it has come through its working life in excellent condition, with even pile across the open ground and borders that are still crisp at the corners. Among 10x13 Persian rugs this is the proportion that actually fills a large living room or seats a full dining table on wool rather than hardwood. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The medallion is drawn in 3 layers. At its heart sits a small ivory cartouche holding an 8 petal rosette, wrapped by a pale sky blue panel of fine scrolling vine, which is then set into a lobed eggplant purple diamond crowded with palmettes, serrated leaves and small blossoms. Slim finials rise from the top and bottom points into the open field, trailing delicate tendrils and scattered single flower heads that keep the bare ground from looking empty. The 4 spandrels are the second event: ivory grounds carrying salmon pink and deep bottle green sub panels filled with rosettes, arabesque scroll and curling cloud bands, each one tipped with a hooked ivory tendril that reaches toward the medallion. A navy to eggplant main border alternates broad palmettes with upright vase and flower groups, bracketed by ivory guard stripes of running rosette vine and a fine zigzag minor stripe in green and red. Classic curvilinear workshop drawing, executed at room size.

Color: Rose Red, Ivory and Eggplant Purple

The field is a saturated rose red leaning toward raspberry, a cooler and more pink reading than the brick reds usually seen in this weaving group, and the open ground lets the wool show its natural luster as the light moves across the pile. Against it, the medallion and main border carry a dark eggplant purple that reads nearly black in low light and opens into true aubergine in daylight. The relief comes from ivory: the spandrels, the guard stripes and the medallion core are all worked in a soft cream that keeps the whole composition bright. Secondary notes are the pale sky blue of the medallion panel, bottle green and sage in the corner sub panels, salmon pink in the spandrels and border blossoms, with small touches of gold ochre and warm brown in the leaf work. For rooms already working around red and burgundy Persian rugs, this piece sits a little cooler and a little more jewel toned than most.

Sarouk Weaving and the Villages Around Arak

Sarouk is a weaving village in central Persia, in the Arak district that also gave the trade Mahal and Sultanabad work, and its reputation was made on two things: dense, heavy wool pile and curvilinear medallion drawing taken from workshop cartoons rather than village memory. Persian Sarouk rugs were woven for hard floors and long service, and that shows here in the close-up of the weave, where the knotting is tight and regular, the wefts are beaten down firmly and the pile still stands square after decades on the floor. Local wool from the Markazi highlands takes dye deeply and wears slowly, which is why Sarouks of this size are so often still sound when far finer city pieces have gone thin. The drawing quality in the medallion and the clean, unbroken corner resolutions in the border put this one in the better village workshop class rather than the commercial end of the group.