9'8" x 13'4" Persian Sarough Rug | Navy Blue Floral Medallion | Excellent Condition

Laid out flat, this is the classic room size piece that collectors picture when they hear the words Persian Sarough rug: a deep navy blue field packed edge to edge with curving vinework, a rust red medallion sitting dead center, and a wide rust border that pulls the eye back in. It measures 9'8" x 13'4", hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation, and the pile still has weight and spring under the hand with no thin spots and clean, even selvages. Handling it in the warehouse, what stands out is the drawing discipline: both halves mirror each other closely, the border turns the 4 corners without the pattern stumbling, and the abrash in the navy is gentle rather than blotchy. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted Persian rug.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a lobed rust red medallion with an ivory cartouche inside it, and at the very heart of that ivory panel sits a small teal rosette ringed by curled leaf forms, visible in the close-up photograph. Pendant finials extend above and below the medallion into the navy ground. Around them the field is an all over lattice of split leaf arabesques, serrated saz leaves, palmettes and small blossoms, all worked on a curving vine rather than the angular village drawing you see further north. The 4 corner spandrels repeat the rust red of the medallion so the composition reads as a balanced set of anchors. The main border runs a continuous scroll of palmettes and rosettes on rust, flanked by ivory guard stripes carrying a running flower head vine, with a fine reciprocal zigzag stripe and a plain navy outer band closing the whole piece.

The Navy Blue, Rust and Ivory Palette

The dominant color is a saturated indigo navy that shifts toward midnight in the shaded parts of the field and toward a lighter slate where the light catches the pile, which is exactly what you want from wool dyed in depth. Against it, the rust red reads warm and slightly tomato toned rather than cherry, and the ivory in the medallion core, the guard stripes and the scattered blossoms carries a faint buttery cream cast instead of bright white. Secondary colors do most of the quiet work: teal and blue green in the leaves and small rosettes, soft salmon and apricot in the flower heads, and touches of ocher in the border vines. It is a strong, traditional combination that sits comfortably with dark wood, leather and brass, and it belongs squarely in the family of navy blue Persian rugs that hide daily traffic better than any pale ground ever will.

Sarough Weaving in Central Persia

Sarough is a weaving village north of Arak in central Persia, and the name became a byword for heavy, tightly packed rugs built for decades of use. Weavers there work on a cotton warp and weft with a dense wool pile, beaten down hard so the rug has real body and lies flat without curling at the ends. The curvilinear floral drawing comes from the workshop tradition of the wider Arak district, where designs were drawn on paper cartoons and followed knot by knot, which is why the medallion, the spandrels and the border of this piece line up as precisely as they do. At 9'8" x 13'4" it falls into the true room size bracket, so if you are comparing options in that range it is worth looking at the rest of the 10x13 Persian rugs in stock before deciding.