7'2" x 9'9" Persian Koliai Rug | All-Over Herati Field, Salmon Diamond Medallion | Kurdish Village Weave

This is a Kurdish village rug in its most honest form: a dark, densely drawn Herati field, a single salmon diamond medallion holding the center, and a wide light red border that carries the whole piece. Hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation, it measures 7'2" x 9'9", which puts it squarely in the most usable range of 7x10 Persian rugs for a seating group or a dining table. The pile is even from end to end, the fringes are full and original, and the selvedges are intact. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity that records origin, materials and size.

Design and Motifs

The field is a classic Herati, also called mahi or fish pattern: a diamond lattice with a rosette at each intersection and 4 curved leaves turning around it like fish around a pool. The weaver kept the repeat small and tight, so the all over Herati design reads as texture from standing height and only resolves into individual rosettes and leaves when you look down at it. At the center sits a stepped diamond medallion with hooked finials at top and bottom, filled with its own miniature lattice, and each of the 4 corners carries a large ivory-outlined spandrel that frames the field on the diagonal. The main border alternates 8 petal rosettes with stylized leaf sprays and bold angular cross motifs, flanked by a running barber-pole guard stripe and slate blue minor borders. Every line is drawn straight and angular rather than curved, which is exactly what you want in a Kurdish weaving.

Color: Salmon Light Red Against a Dark Aubergine Field

The light red here is a soft salmon coral, and it does all the structural work: it fills the central medallion, runs the full width of the main border, and dots the field in small heart-shaped leaf forms. Behind it the ground is a very dark aubergine that shifts toward navy blue and near-black depending on how the light falls, and that depth is what makes the salmon glow rather than shout. Inside the lattice the weaver used a full palette in small doses: chalky ivory and pale lavender-grey rosettes, warm gold and caramel leaves, teal and deep indigo outlines, and touches of brick. The spandrels are ivory with rose and brown filling, which lifts the 4 corners away from the dark center. Nothing in the palette is harsh; it is a warm, slightly faded room color that sits comfortably with wood floors, leather and cream walls.

Koliai: Kurdish Weaving in Western Persia

Koliai, also spelled Kolyai, is a Kurdish tribal group and weaving district in western Persia, in the country between Kermanshah and Hamedan. These are village and small-workshop pieces woven on cotton warps with heavy, high-lanolin mountain wool, knotted at a moderate count and beaten down hard, which is why a Koliai has that firm, meaty handle and takes decades of traffic without thinning. The weavers work from memory rather than a full cartoon, so the Herati repeat drifts slightly across the width and the medallion is not perfectly symmetrical, and that is the signature of a genuine hand-knotted village rug rather than a flaw. Among Persian tribal rugs, Koliai weavings are prized for exactly this combination of tough construction and confident geometric drawing at a price well under the city workshops.