3'4" x 9'10" Persian Heriz Runner Rug | Black Field with Rose Medallion | Excellent Condition

This 3'4" x 9'10" Persian Heriz runner was hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation in the weaving villages of northwest Persia, and long narrow pieces in this design are considerably harder to come by than room-size examples of the same drawing. The field reads almost inky black, with a single rose medallion set at center and a procession of large serrated palmettes running above and below it toward each end. The 3/8" pile is full and upright down the entire length, the sides and ends are original, and the rug is in excellent condition with no restoration. At 9'10" long and just over 3 ft wide it falls squarely into the classic hallway runner proportion, and it also works beside a kitchen island or along the foot of a bed. Every piece we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted Persian rug, and leaves us professionally steamed and pressed.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an 8 petal rosette in olive and ivory, set inside a stepped rose-pink medallion that is outlined twice, first in cream and then in a thin red line. Two large curling leaf forms sweep out to either side of it like brackets, and a pendant palmette rises from the top and drops from the bottom, so the medallion reads as a lantern suspended in the dark field rather than a flat ornament. Above and below, the field carries oversized serrated palmettes and lobed rosettes linked by thin vine stems, with small flowering sprays, angular leaf forms and a few little white bird figures tucked in beside them, which is a village signature rather than a workshop one. The 4 corners are filled with ivory spandrels that frame heavy wine-red blossoms, pulling light into the ends of the runner. A dark main border of linked floral meander runs the full perimeter, held between ivory guard stripes dotted with small rosettes, and the slight shifts in how each repeat is drawn confirm that the weaver worked from memory rather than a strict cartoon.

Black Ground with Rose, Ivory and Olive

The ground is a deep black with a faint charcoal cast where the light catches the pile, and it does the work of a jeweler's velvet: everything laid on it gains contrast. The medallion is a soft rose pink shading toward salmon, with the inner rosette in a muted olive and khaki green. Through the field the reds run from a clear brick rose to a dark wine burgundy, with camel and warm tan leaves, ivory and cream outlines, and small accents of slate blue grey and pale aqua that keep the palette from going too warm. The corner spandrels and the guard stripes are a creamy ivory that reads almost oatmeal against the black. Gentle abrash is visible in the field, the natural tonal drift of hand-dyed wool, and the close-up photographs show the color best, since the full-length overhead shot makes the ground look flatter and darker than it is in person.

Woven in the Heriz Villages of Northwest Persia

The Heriz design comes from the cluster of villages east of Tabriz, below Mount Sabalan, where mineral-rich water and famously tough highland wool produce rugs that are known for lasting through generations of traffic rather than for extreme fineness. Drawing in this tradition is bold and large in scale, with straight lines, stepped outlines and angular leaf forms, and this runner keeps that scale while softening the vine work in the looser village manner. Village looms in the region are usually narrow, which is why runners of this length exist at all, and the weave here is firm and even with the knots beaten down hard, typically under 200 knots per square inch in this class of work. That is exactly the point of the type: the strength is in the wool and the beat-down, not the knot count, and the 3/8" pile on this piece has barely given ground.