11'2" x 18'7" Persian Heriz Karaja Rug | All-Over Geometric Palace Size | 1930s Antique

Woven in the 1930s in the Karaja weaving area of the Heriz district, this 11'2" x 18'7" antique rug is a true room filler, long enough to run the length of a great room or a formal dining hall without a break in the pattern. The whole surface is a repeating geometric lattice on a rust ground, drawn freehand by village weavers rather than copied from a workshop cartoon, so no two rosettes are quite identical. Ninety years of use have left the pile full and the wool glossy, with the soft mineral sheen that only old Heriz district wool develops. Pieces of this length in this condition rarely come to market, and true oversize Persian rugs from the pre-war years are the part of the antique market that keeps appreciating. It ships with a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, age, materials and construction.

Design and Motifs

There is no central medallion here. The field carries an all-over design of stepped octagonal rosettes and serrated star flowers set on a thin diagonal vine lattice, each one ringed with hooked leaves and little arrowhead sprays. Between them sit small squared cartouches with 8 petal rosettes inside, plus recurring cruciform devices in deep navy that read almost like tribal amulets. The main border is a camel gold ground filled with palmettes, turtle style rosettes and curling cloud bands, framed by a salmon guard stripe of rosettes and an ivory reciprocal band on the outer edges. Every element is drawn in straight lines and stepped angles, the hallmark of geometric Persian rugs from the northwest, and the repeat is spaced generously enough that the design still reads clearly across 18 feet of floor.

A Rust, Salmon and Camel Gold Palette

The field is a warm brick rust that moves between terracotta and a softer washed copper as the light crosses it, the natural abrash of hand-dyed wool from separate dye lots. Against it the weavers set two distinct blues: a clear sky blue used for the larger rosettes and leaf forms, and a saturated navy reserved for the small cartouches and cruciform motifs, which gives the field its depth. Salmon pink outlines most of the medallions and fills the inner guard border, while an olive to pistachio green appears in the leaves and in the field flowers and then takes over completely in the camel gold main border. Undyed ivory wool does the drawing work, edging palmettes and filling the reciprocal outer band so the pattern stays legible. It is a warm, earth toned palette that sits comfortably with wood floors, leather and antique furniture rather than fighting them.

Karaja and the Heriz Weaving Villages

Karaja is a small village in the Heriz district east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan, where mineral-rich water and famously tough mountain wool have produced hard wearing rugs for generations. The weavers work on a cotton foundation with a heavy wool pile and a firm beat, and the drawing stays angular because the design is held in memory and worked out on the loom. Village work of this type generally sits under 200 knots per square inch, and that is exactly the point: the value is in the wool quality, the natural dyes and the confident freehand drawing, not in fineness. A piece this large would have been commissioned for a substantial house and woven over a long stretch on a wide loom. If you want to understand how weave, dye and wear combine to place a rug in a decade, our guide on how to date an Oriental rug covers the same signals we used on this one.