3'1" x 19'4" Persian Hamedan Runner Rug | Red Orange Herati Lattice | Excellent Condition

Runners this long are not ordered from a catalogue, they are woven for a specific corridor, and that is exactly what this piece is: a single uninterrupted 19'4" length of hand-knotted Hamedan weaving, 3'1" wide, with the same all-over lattice carried from one fringed end to the other without a seam or a join. The wool pile stands a full 3/8" and still has its body and sheen, the selvedges are tight, and the flat-woven ivory end finishes shown in the close-up photographs are original and intact. Condition is excellent, with no repairs, no reweaves and no thin areas. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction, and this one is a straightforward, honest village weave of a kind that is getting steadily harder to find in true hall lengths.

Design and Motifs

The field carries a continuous Herati lattice, the pattern Persian weavers call mahi or fish: a trellis of small diamonds, each framed by curling serrated leaves with a rosette at its center, repeating in strict rows the entire 19'4" run. Because the drawing is built on a grid rather than a medallion, the eye never finds a stopping point, which is precisely why this layout has been the default choice for long hallway work for well over a century. Count the border system and there are 3 narrow guard stripes flanking the main band: a dark reciprocal zigzag vine on each side of a wider band filled with alternating ivory palmettes and small upright floral sprays, with a plain red outer edge finishing the whole length. At both ends the pattern resolves into a short row of flowering plants above the kilim finish, a small village touch that shows the weaver drew the ending rather than simply cutting the rug off. The detail photographs make the knotting legible, with the dark outlines drawn square and crisp against the lighter ground.

The Color: Red Orange Field with Black Drawing

The ground is a warm red orange, closer to brick and terracotta than to a cool cherry red, and it lifts to a soft salmon rose where the light catches the pile at an angle. Against that ground the lattice is drawn in a near black charcoal that in strong light shows its true depth, a very dark brown black with cool bottle green notes inside some of the leaf forms. Ivory does the lifting work: small cream rosettes and petal shapes scattered through the diamonds, a thin ivory outline on the guard stripes, and the full ivory palmettes in the main border, which is what keeps a dense all-over pattern from reading as a dark stripe on the floor. Secondary accents appear in small quantities and are worth looking for, clear dark green dots at the heart of some rosettes, a few copper and mustard golds in the border figures, and a rust red that sits a shade deeper than the field. The overall effect is a rich, warm, slightly smoky red that works with wood floors and with white or cream wall paint.

Hamedan Origin and Weaving Quality

Hamedan sits in western Persia at the foot of Mount Alvand and is the market town for hundreds of surrounding weaving villages, which is why so much of the best long runner work in Persia came through it. These are single wefted village rugs on a cotton foundation with a sturdy, slightly coarse mountain wool pile, built for traffic rather than for a wall, and the Herati grid is the pattern Hamedan villages know best. The weave here is even and regular over the full length, a real achievement on a loom this narrow and this long, with the lattice holding its line instead of wandering or narrowing as the rug grows. Because hall lengths over 18 feet are dictated entirely by the architecture, a piece like this usually sells to the one buyer who measured the corridor and found that nothing else fits, which makes it a sensible candidate for genuinely long hallway runner rugs and gallery passages. Compare it against other geometric Persian rugs and the virtue of this one is its restraint: one pattern, one color story, 19'4" of consistent hand-knotting.