6'10" x 9' Persian Heriz Rug | Rust and Near-Black | Rectangular

A hand-knotted Persian carpet measuring 6'10" x 9', rectangular, and worked in the Heriz manner of north-west Persia. What sets it apart from most Heriz carpets of this size is the field: there is no central medallion at all, only a repeating pattern of large serrated palmettes and barbed leaves running corner to corner across soft rust ground, held inside a narrow ivory frame and a near-black outer border. The pile reads low and evenly clipped in the photographs, and the condition is given as excellent.

Design

The field is laid out as a lattice rather than around a centre. Broad angular palmettes in cream and pale rose sit at the crossings, each flanked by long serrated leaves drawn in dark indigo so sharply that they read as the strongest lines in the rug. Between them run small stepped vases, hooked rosettes and little blue blossoms on thin stems, with the whole repeat shifting slightly from one row to the next rather than mirroring exactly. The main border carries a procession of palmettes and curling leaves on a near-black ground, flanked on both sides by a wide tan-ivory guard band of angular meander and a narrow outer stripe of reciprocal triangles. The close-up photographs show where the design wanders by a knot or two, which is normal for weaving of this kind done from memory rather than a cartoon.

Colour

The ground is a rust that has mellowed toward old brick, close to faded rose where the light crosses the pile and browner in the shadowed areas and along the corners. Against it the drawing is picked out in cream, salmon pink and a dusty camel-gold, with mid blue and a greyish slate blue filling the smaller flowers. The border ground is a near-black indigo, dark enough to read as black at a distance, and it is this band that gives the rug its weight; the pale tan guard stripes on either side of it keep the outer edge light rather than heavy. Brown appears mostly in outlines and in the darker patches of the field.

Making

Hand-knotted in Persia in the Heriz tradition, this is a vintage carpet in excellent condition. The reverse, photographed beside a twelve-inch rule, shows a clear even knot structure with the border pattern legible from the back, and the ivory fringe is full across the end with the selvedges intact. The pile sits low and uniform across the field, with no bare areas visible in any of the pictures.