5' x 6'9" Persian Tabriz Rug | Heriz Geometric Medallion | Wool & Silk 400 KPSI, Never Used

A city weaver in Tabriz took one of the oldest village drawings in Persia and rebuilt it at workshop fineness. That is what this rug is: a Heriz style star medallion, normally woven at village knot counts, here knotted at roughly 400 knots per square inch in wool with silk highlights, so the serrations stay razor sharp and the small animals in the spandrels actually read as animals. It dates to the 2000s and has never been on a floor, with full pile, clean unshaded color and crisp selvedges. At 5' x 6'9" it belongs to the most useful group of 5x7 Persian rugs, small enough to move, formal enough to carry a room. Every rug we ship leaves with a certificate of authenticity listing origin, materials and knot count.

Design and Motifs

The field carries a single 8 point star medallion with a small rosette at its center, stepped out into rust and cream layers and finished top and bottom with jagged pendants shaped like cypress buds. Around it the black ground is packed with serrated leaves, curling vine, palmettes and little rosettes, drawn in the angular geometric medallion vocabulary rather than the flowing curve of a floral Tabriz. All 4 corners hold large cream spandrels filled with scrolling vine, birds, deer and standing stags, each one outlined in dark red so it lifts off the ivory. The main border repeats a turtle palmette and rosette rhythm on a rust ground, framed by narrow guard stripes of tiny white flowerheads on ivory and a fine black outer line. Note how the drawing on the reverse in the last photograph is as legible as the front, which only happens at this knot count.

A Black Field Lit by Rust, Cream and Green

Black is the ground color and it is a true deep black, not a very dark navy, which is uncommon in this design and makes everything sitting on it look brighter than it would over madder red. Against it the medallion and the wide border run in a warm rust that shades toward terracotta and soft salmon where the silk catches the light. Cream and pale beige carry the spandrels, the inner medallion and the guard stripes, giving the composition its breathing room. Accents come in small, deliberate doses: deep garnet red in the rosettes and the outlines of the animals, several tones of olive and sage green through the leaves and palmettes, and a warm brown in the vine work and the outer edge. Under lamplight the silk highlights in the medallion and border pick up a faint sheen while the wool stays matte, so the rug shifts quietly as you walk around it.

Tabriz Weaving and Quality

Tabriz in northwest Persia has been the country's most disciplined commercial weaving city for centuries, and its looms are measured by Raj, the number of knots across a gereh of roughly 2.75 inches. Around 40 Raj is ordinary commercial goods, 50 is fine, and the 60 Raj level seen here, approximately 400 knots per square inch, is where a rug moves into collector territory. The Heriz villages east of Tabriz invented this medallion, but they work at well under 200 knots per square inch, so a Tabriz workshop rendering of the same drawing at double that density is a genuinely different object: tighter outlines, smaller leaves, cleaner steps in the medallion. The pile is wool with silk worked into the highlights, knotted on a cotton foundation that keeps a rug this fine lying dead flat, and the pile is clipped low so none of the detail is lost. Never used, so the full original pile height and color are intact.