Old Sarough | 192 x 136 cm | Nr. Z-3375

Old floral Sarough, light red with border

Origin	Persia
Dimensions	192 cm x 136 cm (= 2.6112 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes) Weft & Warp: cotton
knots per m²2	250.000
Pile height	5mm
Year of manufacture	1930
Colour	Light red, dark blue
Edition	one-of-a-kind piece

Origin

This rug comes from Sarough (also Sarouk, Saruk or Sarogh). Sarough is one of Iran's best-known rug-knotting regions. Located in the west Persian province of Aarak, it takes in the provenances Arak, Djozan, Ghiasabad, Mahal, Malayer, Mohajeran, Sultanabad and Wiss. In Sarough, Persian patterns of every kind are knotted, in part also to the specifications of the customer. Especially popular are the neighbouring Farahan designs, the region's own Sultanabad patterns and the so-called Mir-i-Boteh pattern made up of paisley motifs. Typical of this class of rug is the very good wool quality of the pile, as the new wool comes from the Persian highlands. The foundation – warp and weft – is, however, usually made of cotton. In old and antique rugs you will often find a blue weft thread. The knotting is very fine and the pile relatively high. This old Sarough is around 90 years old and a real collector's piece.

Pattern

The decorated surround (border) forms a wonderful contrast to the centre and shapes the transition at the edge of the rug.

The lavish floral motifs of this Sarough are elegant and wonderfully varied. The graceful plant symbols, depicting blossoms, leaves and branches, are artfully intertwined.

The background of this Sarough is light red. The border is worked in dark blue and light red.

Condition

You're not the first to take a liking to this Sarough. It has had owners before you who valued it and lived with it. It was hand-knotted around 1930. It has been thoroughly cleaned and is in good but unrestored condition. The fringes could do with a repair. The edges are damaged in places. The pile is worn in spots. Two bare patches are visible. We haven't restored this Sarough because we feel it has a special charm just as it is. If you'd like us to, we'll of course be happy to restore the rug for you. Either way, this Sarough will give you pleasure for decades to come.

Material

The technique used to make the materials for this Sarough's pile is more than 200 years old. The wool was dyed with natural dyes and spun by hand. Dyeing with natural or plant dyes is more complicated, more expensive and more time-consuming than dyeing with chemical colours. For a luminous red, for example, you need around one kilo of ground madder root as dyestuff per kilo of wool. For a strong yellow that is not too pale, you even need two kilograms of the dyestuff weld per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is labour-intensive and takes time, too. And fewer and fewer people still know how to spin wool by hand.

But the effort is worth it: dyeing with natural dyes allows the high-quality wool to keep its natural lanolin content. Wool dyed with natural dyes and spun by hand produces fascinating, shifting patterns. The charm of hand-spun wool, with its slight irregularities and natural shades, works beautifully as a contrast in modern interiors, but equally in rooms furnished in a more traditional or country style. The weft and warp threads of this Sarough are made of cotton. This versatile material is tear-resistant and elastic, which makes it especially suited to a hard-wearing foundation weave.