10' x 13' Persian Heriz Rug | Geometric Medallion, Brick Red Field | Semi-Antique

This is a full room size Heriz in the classic northwest Persian formula, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and finished at a 3/8" pile that still stands evenly across all 13 feet of its length. The field is a deep brick red carrying an angular navy medallion, and the four corners are drawn in ivory so the centre reads clearly from across a room. At 10 feet wide it covers a dining table with chairs pulled out or anchors a large sitting room without crowding the walls, which is exactly the proportion most buyers searching 10x13 Persian rugs are after. Every rug we ship travels with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted and Persian in origin.

Design and Motifs

The centre holds an 8 petal rosette medallion outlined in ivory and set into a navy ground, with hooked pendants running north and south along the long axis. Around it the weaver has filled the field with squared palmettes, serrated leaves, hooked brackets and small blossom boxes, all drawn with the straight lines and stepped edges that define the village idiom rather than the curved vine of a city workshop. The 4 corner spandrels are ivory, each carrying its own cluster of angular flower heads and framed boxes, and they give the composition the light it needs against so much red. The main border runs a navy ground with alternating rosettes, split leaves and cross-shaped stars, flanked by narrow guard stripes of blossom and vine. It is a textbook piece of drawing for collectors of geometric Persian rugs, with just enough asymmetry in the smaller motifs to prove the loom, not a machine.

The Colour Palette in Detail

The field is a warm brick red that shifts between a tomato tone and a softer rose depending on where you stand, an abrash effect that comes from hand-dyed wool taken from more than one dye lot. Sitting on it is deep indigo navy, used for the medallion ground, the border ground and the outlines of nearly every motif, so dark in places that it reads almost black in the corner photograph. Undyed ivory carries the spandrels, the medallion petals and the fine outlines that keep the drawing legible, while a dusty rose and a soft salmon give the leaves and palmettes their mid-tone. Scattered through the field are small strokes of camel gold and a clear mid blue, plus occasional flecks of brown and olive in the border rosettes. The fringe is clean white cotton at both ends. The overall effect is warm and traditional, and it sits naturally with wood floors, leather, brass and antique furniture.

Heriz: The Weaving Villages East of Tabriz

Heriz is a cluster of villages east of Tabriz on the slopes below Mount Sabalan, in the far northwest of Persia. The water there runs through mineral-rich rock, and the local sheep grow a wool that is famously tough and slightly coarse, which is why a Heriz outlasts finer rugs put in the same hallway or dining room. Weavers there work from memory and from village conventions rather than a full cartoon, which is what produces the angular medallion, the straight lines and the stepped corners you see here instead of a flowing curve. Village Heriz weaving normally sits under 200 knots per square inch, and that is the point: the knots are large, the pile is thick, the foundation is heavy cotton, and the rug is built to take generations of traffic. This piece shows the even, unworn pile of a rug that has been kept carefully, with all 4 sides and both fringes intact.