11'1" x 15'1" Persian Heriz Rug | Geometric Medallion | Semi-Antique Soft Red & Ivory

Opened out at 11'1" x 15'1", this semi-antique Persian Heriz is a genuine room-size floor piece, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation in the weaving villages east of Tabriz. The dyes have mellowed the way only decades of good wool and honest use can manage, so the field reads as a warm, softened red rather than a hot one, and the pile still stands full and even across all 15 feet. Pieces of this footprint belong to the small group of oversize Persian rugs that most looms never attempt, because the warp tension, the wool supply and the drawing all have to hold from the first knot to the last. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a large lobed medallion built on an ivory ground, filled with small squared rosettes, blue and coral palmettes and a ring of 8 pointed cartouches, then wrapped in a deep navy surround that throws the ivory forward. Long serrated pendants run off the medallion toward each end, and the red field around it carries big angular leaves, hooked vine tips and palmettes drawn in straight lines rather than curves, which is exactly what separates these village pieces from city workshop florals and makes them such recognizable geometric Persian rug designs. Ivory spandrels close the 4 corners with curled leaves and small blossoms, and the main navy border repeats rosettes and angular vinework between narrow guard stripes picked out in soft yellow and rose.

A Softened Red, Deep Indigo and Cream Palette

The field is an antique soft red that sits between terracotta and old brick, with gentle abrash moving across the width so the ground breathes instead of sitting flat. Against it, the border and the medallion outline go to a near-black indigo blue, while the medallion core, the corner spandrels and the inner guard stripe are worked in a warm cream ivory. Inside the drawing you find the rest of the range: mid blue and pale sky blue in the leaves and rosettes, salmon and dusty rose in the palmettes, small accents of soft yellow-green along the leaf edges, and touches of clean white in the flower hearts. It is a warm palette overall, easy with wood floors, camel and brown leather, brass and deep green.

Woven in the Heriz Villages of Northwest Persia

Heriz is a cluster of villages east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan, where mineral-rich water gives the local fleece an unusually tough, high-luster fiber that resists crushing under furniture and foot traffic. Weavers there work from memory and from a village drawing tradition rather than a full cartoon, which is why the medallion is squared and stepped instead of perfectly curved, and why no two Heriz rugs of this size ever match exactly. The back photograph shows an even, regular knot line with straight selvedges and original cotton fringe, the marks of a competently stretched loom held steady over a long weaving. Village Heriz work is not about extreme fineness, it is about scale, color and wool that survives generations, and this 11'1" x 15'1" example carries all 3.