Rugsville Classic Designer Serapi Red Wool Persian Carpet 9' x 12'

Serapi is the name western dealers gave to a class of carpet woven in north-western Persia from around 1870 to 1910, distinguished by an open, geometric drawing of the medallion and corner spandrels, large unworked passages of madder ground, and a colour palette restricted to the half-dozen pigments a village dyer could maintain. The Serapi field is more drawn than painted. It is a carpet that respects negative space.

Three weavers shared the loom over roughly seven months. Knots were tied row by row in the asymmetric Persian draw against a vertical beam, paced to the cartoon mounted above. The pile is wool, hand-spun from highland fleece, washed before dyeing so the natural lanolin retained the bath. Reds came from madder root cooked over multiple days, blues from fermented indigo, the secondary tones from oak gall, walnut hull, and pomegranate skin. Cotton warp and weft, beaten tight at the close of each line.

The composition

A central medallion drawn in soft red and ivory, set against a field of saturated madder. Corner spandrels in ivory mirror the medallion. The pattern reads cleanly at distance because the drawing is loose enough to breathe. The red will lighten over years of daylight to the warm brick the antique Serapis are loved for. The vegetable dye produces abrash, a soft horizontal banding where consecutive dye lots vary, that turns every passage into something nearer painting than printed pattern.

What you are buying

Antique nineteenth-century Serapis at 9' x 12' (274 x 366 cm) regularly sell at Christie's, Sotheby's, and Rippon Boswell between thirty and seventy thousand dollars when they surface in good condition. This rug is a current weaving in the same tradition on the same loom geometry, made for use rather than for the vault. The rug appreciates with use rather than depreciates. Antique price simply marks where this object travels over decades.

The piece in a room

9' x 12' (274 x 366 cm) holds a primary drawing room or a dining table seating eight to ten with chairs fully out. The red field anchors a room with warm timber, brass detail, and substantial upholstery in oatmeal, ochre, or oxblood. A Serapi resists fashion. It looks correct in a 1920s Bombay flat, a Lutyens bungalow, and a contemporary apartment with concrete floors and steel-framed glass.

Conservation

Rotate the rug a half turn each spring and autumn so wear distributes evenly. Vacuum weekly with suction only, never the beater bar. Blot any spill with a clean cotton cloth working from outside in. Schedule a hand wash every five to seven years with a wool conservator who understands plant dyes and natural foundations. Properly maintained, this rug runs eighty years and crosses generations.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 274 x 366 cm (9' x 12')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3 weavers, approximately 7 months
• Pile: hand-spun highland wool
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, walnut hull, pomegranate)
• Origin: India

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