10'6" x 13'5" Antique Persian Sarough Rug, Navy Field with Ivory Medallion and Pre-Revolution Pedigree

Pre-revolution, never walked on, woven roughly seventy years ago in the Arak region of central Persia. This 10'6" x 13'5" antique Persian Sarough shows the workshop tradition at its mid-century peak, with a stepped ivory and crimson medallion floating on a deep navy field that has been worked corner to corner with palmettes, rosettes, and curling vine. The wool has retained its full pile and the original sheen, the dyes are saturated without a hint of fading, and the drawing is unusually balanced for a rug of this size.

Design and Motifs

The central medallion is built from layered stepped lobes, opening into a starburst inner figure in scarlet, ivory, and sky blue. Around it, the navy field carries an allover floral language of palmettes, weeping boteh, rosettes, and slender cypress-like terminals, with strong axial verticals running top and bottom. The corner spandrels mirror the medallion in cream and pale celadon, anchored by paired floral sprays. The main border on ivory ground carries the classic Sarough turtle-palmette and rosette procession, flanked by reciprocating minor guards on pale blue and red. Every quadrant resolves cleanly, the mark of a fully cartooned workshop piece rather than a folk-drawn one.

Colors and Placement

The palette runs deep navy and crimson against ivory and pale celadon, lit from inside by canary yellow, rose, sky blue, sage, and old gold. It reads formal but never heavy, and the ivory border keeps the perimeter feeling open. At 10x13 it lives most naturally under a full dining table with chairs pulled out, or as the anchor of a formal living room with a sofa and two flanking chairs floated on the field. The navy ground reads beautifully against off-white walls, against rich wood paneling, and against the muted blue-grays that dominate current interior palettes.

Origin and Construction

Sarough belongs to the Arak weaving region of central Persia, and the tradition behind this piece is laid out in detail in our guide to Persian Sarough rugs. The construction here is fully hand-knotted wool pile on a cotton foundation, at 200 to 220 knots per square inch, with the dense, slightly stiff handle that gives Sarough its reputation for lasting generations. Pre-revolution Sarough weaving like this represents one of the last great workshop chapters before the 1979 break in production, and pieces in this condition almost never reach the market. The full history of Persian workshop weaving and its golden era is covered in our Persian rugs history and style guide, and this 10x13 rectangular format places it squarely in the room-size and oversize bracket that mid-century American collectors prized above all others.