2'7" x 22'2" Persian Hamedan Runner Rug | All-Over Herati Fish Design | Extra Long Red Runner

Runners this long are not woven on speculation. At 2'7" x 22'2" this Persian Hamedan was made for a specific corridor, and finding one that has survived in perfect condition with its full 3/8" wool pile and both fringed ends intact is unusual. The drawing is a tight all-over Herati repeat, the field is a deep madder red, and the weight in the hand is exactly what you expect from a well made Hamedan village rug: firm, heavy for its width, and completely flat on the floor. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The field carries the Herati pattern, known in Persia as mahi or the fish pattern: a diamond lattice with a small rosette at each intersection and four curved leaves turning around it like fish circling a pond. Here the lattice is drawn in dark navy against the red, small in scale and repeated without a break for the whole 22'2", which is a serious feat of concentration on a loom this narrow. Because the repeat is continuous and there is no medallion, the eye travels the length of the rug rather than stopping, and the runner reads as one long ribbon of pattern. The main border is an ivory band of alternating rosettes and angular vine, flanked by narrow navy guard stripes with a running zigzag, and the whole is finished with a fine outer stripe and plain fringe. If you like this kind of uninterrupted drawing, it sits in the same family as our other all-over pattern Persian rugs.

A Deep Madder Red Field With Navy and Ivory

Red is the whole character of this piece. The ground is a warm madder red that shifts slightly along the length, a touch brighter and more brick toned in the open areas and deeper toward the sides, which is the natural abrash of a hand dyed village rug and one of the easiest ways to tell a real one from a machine copy. Over that red sits the lattice in near black navy, and inside the small motifs you find touches of gold ochre, soft green, ivory and, scattered through the rosettes, a pale lilac and cornflower blue that lift the whole field. The main border is the lightest element, a creamy ivory that frames the red and keeps the runner from reading as a solid block of color down a corridor. Against warm wood floors the red glows; against pale stone or a gray painted hall it gives you the single strongest line of color in the room.

Hamedan Weaving and Why It Wears So Well

Hamedan is one of the oldest towns in western Persia and the center of a weaving region of several hundred villages that has supplied Persian rugs for well over a century. The work is single wefted on a cotton foundation, which gives a flat, firm handle, and the local highland wool is coarse in the best sense: springy, high in lanolin and famously slow to show traffic. That combination is why Hamedan runners are the ones you still find serving a hallway fifty years later while finer city weaves in the same spot have gone thin. With a 3/8" pile still standing across the full length, this one has barely started its working life, and its proportions make it a genuine answer for the long stair landings and extra long hallway runners that almost nothing else fits.