7'11" x 11'4" Persian Heriz Rug | Coral Red Geometric Medallion | Ivory Spandrels, Excellent Condition

Hold this one at arm's length and the drawing does exactly what a good Heriz is supposed to do: one big stepped medallion, four heavy ivory corner spandrels, and a field that fills every remaining inch with angular vinework. The pile is a full 3/8" of dense sheep's wool on a cotton foundation, and the handle is firm rather than floppy, which is why rugs from this district survive generations of traffic. At 7'11" x 11'4" it sits squarely in the most useful of all room proportions, so it works where most 8x11 Persian rugs are bought, under a sofa group or a full dining set. Condition is excellent, with even pile across the field and clean selvedges, and the rug ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming it as a hand-knotted Persian weave.

Design and Motifs

The center is an 8 petal ivory rosette set inside a small dark cross, which sits inside a stepped diamond medallion outlined in olive and powder blue, with hooked pendants breaking out at top and bottom and small anchor shapes pushing out to left and right. Around it the field carries serrated palmettes, hooked leaves and sharp little cypress forms, all drawn with the straight lines and staircase edges that separate this district from the curvilinear city workshops. The 4 corner spandrels are worked in ivory with dark red and navy detail, and they deliberately cut the field into a strong diagonal frame. The main border runs a navy ground with alternating rosettes and lobed cartouches, held between narrow guard stripes of running dots and small vine. If you like this vocabulary of angles and stepped outlines, it belongs with the best geometric Persian rugs rather than with floral formal designs.

A Close Look at the Colors

The field reads as a warm coral red, closer to brick and terracotta than to a cool cherry, and it carries gentle tonal movement across the width where the dye lots meet, the abrash that madder-dyed wool nearly always shows. Against it the medallion and border grounds drop to a deep inky navy that photographs almost black in the borders, while the spandrels and the medallion core lift to a soft ivory cream. Between those extremes sit the secondary tones that give the rug its depth: a dusty olive khaki through the leaves and vine, a pale powder blue used purely as outlining, rose pink in the small florets, and touches of dark chocolate brown in the outer stripes. It is a red rug, but a complex one, and it will settle beside both walnut furniture and cool grey walls. Buyers working to a palette can see how it compares with our other red and burgundy Persian rugs.

Heriz Origin and Weaving Quality

Heriz is a cluster of weaving villages east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan in northwest Persia. The water there is mineral rich, and local lore, backed up by every dealer who has handled the wool, credits it for fleece that is unusually tough and takes a hard madder red without going brittle. Weavers work from memory and from village drawings rather than from a full cartoon, which is why the medallion and spandrels in this rug are squared off into steps instead of curved, and why no two Heriz rugs of the same design ever match exactly. Village weaving here is normally knotted at a lower count than city workshop pieces, deliberately, because a slightly coarser knot on a thick wool pile is what produces a rug you can put in the middle of a family room and still hand down. That is the case with this piece: heavy, flat lying, honestly drawn, and built for decades of use.