6'4" x 9'10" Persian Sherazi Rug | Wool | Faded Salmon

A hand-knotted rug from Persia, 6'4" x 9'10", with a wool pile worn low and even across the whole surface. The spec table names the design Sherazi; the drawing is the angular, stepped-medallion type usually sold as Heriz, and the two names sit close together in the trade. At a glance it is a faded salmon field under a dark medallion and a broad olive-brown border, a rectangular piece in the 6x9 to 8x10 range that lands square under a coffee table with the chairs on its edges.

The design

The centre holds an eight-pointed stepped medallion on a near-black ground, its arms outlined in sage and filled with small hooked rosettes, with a cream pendant palmette hanging above and below it. Wide indented spandrels in cream reach in from the four corners, their edges cut in the blunt staircase line typical of this drawing. The field between them is packed with angular vinework, split leaves, comb-like bars and small birds and quadrupeds, all drawn on the same grid as the medallion rather than in curves. The main border runs olive-brown and carries alternating palmettes and leaf forms in pink and ivory, flanked inside and out by narrow guard stripes of reciprocal zigzag in brick red and dark brown.

The colour

The field reads as faded salmon, shading to a muted coral where the pile has worn thinnest and to soft pink and beige through the centre. Against it the medallion ground is a brown so dark it is nearly black, which is what keeps the design legible now that the field has lightened. Sage green does most of the outlining, grey and a dulled blue fill the smaller motifs, and the border holds a khaki-olive that turns almost grey-green in raking light. The only saturated colour left is the rust in the outer guard stripe and along the selvedge, visible in the curled edge photograph.

The making

Hand-knotted in wool, dated in the table to the 1970s, which puts it among the semi-antique pieces rather than the old ones. The condition is given as very good with even wear, and that is what the photographs show: the pile is short throughout, the knot nodes stand clear on the back, and the pattern reads through to the reverse with no bald patches or repairs in view. The rug lies flat and handles with the softness that only comes off a pile this far down. One of many hand-knotted pieces in our full collection.