7'11" x 11'5" Persian Heriz Rug | Stepped Geometric Medallion | Excellent Condition Wool Pile

This is a village Heriz of the classic kind, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and finished with a 3/8" pile that still stands full and even across all 4 corners. At 7'11" x 11'5" it sits squarely in the most useful large room format we sell, and buyers shopping 8x11 Persian rugs will recognise how hard a genuine old-school Heriz in this size is to find with the drawing this crisp. The wool has the dry, slightly glossy handle that the Heriz district is known for, the selvages are intact and the ends are secure with the original fringe. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The field is built around a large stepped medallion in deep indigo, outlined twice in ivory so the silhouette reads instantly from across a room, with a small rosette and paired hooked leaves at its centre. Anchor motifs extend from the medallion at both ends, each carrying a lantern-shaped cartouche filled with an angular cypress form. The red ground around it is packed with serrated leaves, hooked palmettes, tiny 8 pointed stars and short angular vines, all drawn in the straight-line vocabulary that separates this weaving group from the curvilinear city workshops. Ivory spandrels fill the 4 corners with dense leaf and blossom drawing, and the design closes with a navy main border of alternating rosettes and boxed geometric panels between narrow reciprocal guard stripes. The patterning is typical of the best Persian geometric rugs, symmetrical in structure but full of small hand-drawn variations from one side to the other.

A Field of Madder Red, Indigo and Ivory

The ground is a warm madder red that shifts between brick and terracotta depending on which way the pile is brushed, exactly the abrash you want to see in a genuine village weave. Against it, the medallion, the border and the anchor cartouches are worked in a dark indigo blue that reads almost black in low light and opens up to a clear navy in daylight. Ivory is the third voice and does the structural work: it outlines the medallion, fills the 4 corner spandrels and runs through the thin guard stripes, keeping the composition from going heavy. Olive and pine green accents appear in the leaves and in the border panels, and small touches of rose, soft peach and light blue are scattered through the field and the ivory corners. The overall reading is a rich, warm red room rug that carries dark wood, leather and brass without effort.

Heriz: Village Weaving East of Tabriz

Heriz is a cluster of villages east of Tabriz, in the country below Mount Sabalan in north west Persia. The mineral-rich water there is credited with producing wool that is unusually tough and slightly coarse, which is why Heriz rugs wear for generations under real traffic rather than living a careful life. Weavers work from memory and from village drawings rather than a full cartoon, which is why the angular medallion, the straight lines and the stepped corners come out slightly different on every piece. Knot counts in the district generally sit under 200 knots per square inch, and this rug is a good example of that standard: a robust, well-balanced weave on a cotton foundation with a heavy wool pile, built for use rather than for display under glass. Laid flat, it has the weight and the body that collectors expect from the Heriz group.