Fine and Very Rare Persian Saruk Rug

Persian Saruk carpets derive their name from a relatively small town in Persia, located twenty miles north of Arak (formerly Sultanabad). Over a short span of history, this town has produced some of the most highly regarded Persian weavings of the late 19th to early 20th century as a major contributing centre of Persian urban revival. Both large scale carpets and smaller decorative rugs are made here, with designs often based on recognised and established 17th Century Safavid urban designs.

This Fine Persian Saruk rug displays a main field pattern based on an early 17th Century design from a small group of large carpets referred to as ‘Star and Cross’ carpets which appear to originate from North West Persia, though examples adopting this style of design also appear to have been made in Khorasan in North East Persia. Typically with the revival of the carpet industry towards the end of the 19th Century, established urban centres used earlier Classical models as the basis for their ‘new’ patterns. From the late 19th Century Persian Saruk rugs and carpets rapidly gained popularity in Western markets due to the highly decorative designs, extremely well executed with fine quality materials and exceptional broad colour palette, displaying a wonderful range of rich complementing saturated colours. The Classical ‘Star and Cross’ design show cruciform medallions interlocking with star shaped medallions which enclose boldly drawn angular trees and plants issuing flower heads and leaves. This Persian Saruk rug ‘version’ displays cruciform medallions interlocking with circular lobed medallions replacing the star shaped versions of the classical models. Instead of boldly drawn plants and blossoming trees the medallion infill is highly detailed with intricately drawn floral motifs. The lobed circular medallions are coloured in coral, ivory, salmon pink, deep red, blue or brown, arranged throughout the rug to create the best possible harmonic appearance. Each medallion encloses exceptionally finely drawn flower heads radiating angular vines issuing tiny flower heads and leaves creating a magnificent formal floral display utilising the full colour range to sublime artistic effect. The complementing blue cartouches present two styles of design. The darker blue cartouches display a small ivory lobed flower head miniature tile pattern, and the pale blue cartouches enclose even smaller pale blue flower heads. All the elements are exceptionally finely drawn, and the varying scales of the motifs serve to enhance the sheer beauty and fluidity of design presented in this magnificent Persian Saruk rug. The dark blue border encloses alternating ivory and beige medallions of circular form enclosing flower heads with supporting vines drawn less finely than the field motifs, which cleverly serves to frame the main field pattern.

This is a rare example of fine Saruk weaving, based on the style of design, and incredible range of harmonic colours used to create the best possible floral pattern, inspired by classical 17th Century prototypes.

Fine and Very Rare Persian Saruk Rug. This piece was handwoven in Saruk , Iran. For further information please contact us and our team will be pleased to assist you. All pieces in the collection are under the auspices of Essie Sakhai, one of the world’s foremost experts and collectors of fine handmade Persian rugs and carpets.