9' x 11'9" Serapi Rug | Navy Blue Geometric Medallion | Hand-Knotted Wool

This is a room-size Serapi in the classic form: a deep navy field, one large stepped medallion filling the center, ivory spandrels cut into the 4 corners, and a wide brick red border carrying rosettes and curling leaf forms. It measures 9' x 11'9", is hand-knotted entirely by hand on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" wool pile, and is in excellent condition with full, even pile from end to end. The drawing is bold and legible from across a room rather than fussy up close, which is exactly why this design has stayed in demand for more than a century. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is hand-knotted, along with its size, materials and origin.

Design and Motifs

The layout is strictly symmetrical along both axes. At the center sits an octagonal medallion outlined in sage green and salmon, its rust red interior filled with mirrored palmettes, small hooked leaves and a pale ivory cartouche at the very middle. Long serrated pendants run north and south from the medallion into the navy field, ending in spiky star-shaped finials, while two smaller diamond motifs anchor the field left and right in the close-up photographs. Everything is drawn in straight lines and stepped angles, the hallmark of geometric rugs in this family, with no curved vine work anywhere. The main border alternates squared rosettes with reversed hook and vine elements on a brick red ground, framed by ivory guard stripes that carry a tiny repeating bracket motif. Even the corner resolutions are handled cleanly, which is a good sign of a well drafted cartoon.

Navy Blue, Brick Red and Ivory

The field reads as a very dark navy, close to ink blue, and it does the heavy lifting: it pushes the rust red medallion and border forward and makes the ivory spandrels look almost luminous. The red is a warm brick or terracotta tone rather than a hot crimson, softened further by an abrash-like variation across the border in the photographs. Between those two anchors sits a whole supporting palette that only shows itself up close: sage and olive green in the medallion ring and border rosettes, muted slate blue in the palmette interiors, dusty salmon and rose in the pendants and corner leaves, and small squares of pale turquoise scattered through the border boxes. The ivory is a soft cream rather than a bright white, so the rug sits comfortably with warm woods, brass, leather and off-white walls instead of fighting them.

Made in India: Weave and Quality

This piece was made in India, which is where most of the world's best contemporary hand-knotted weaving now happens, and it was made to a standard that shows in the back photograph: rows of knots that stay straight and even, tight and regular wefting, and clean selvedges with the warp ends finished as plain cotton fringe. The Serapi design belongs to a village weaving tradition built on coarse, glossy wool and large scale geometry, and it translates well to this weave because the pattern depends on confident drawing rather than an extreme knot count. At 3/8", the pile is substantial enough to take real traffic and to hold the pattern crisply for decades. If you are weighing this against other Oriental rug options in the same size, the appeal here is simple: a big, graphic, hand-knotted wool floor covering with the color depth of an old village piece and the tight, sound structure of a rug that has barely been used.