7'4" x 11'3" Persian Heriz Rug | Deep Red Field with Navy Stepped Medallion | Excellent Condition

This is a classic village Heriz in the proportion most buyers are actually looking for: long enough to carry a seating group or a full dining table, narrow enough to sit cleanly between walls. The field is a deep red that leans slightly lilac in daylight, the medallion is a navy 8 point star with stepped edges, and the spandrels are ivory, which is the drawing that made Heriz famous. The pile is hand-knotted wool at 3/8", full and even across the whole surface, on a hand-spun cotton foundation, with the tight flat handle these rugs get from heavy highland fleece. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a navy stepped medallion with 8 points, filled with a red rosette core, curling ivory vines and 4 framed cartouches, each carrying a small quatrefoil bloom. Above and below it, anchor pendants run out into the field and end in leafy finials. The red ground around the medallion is packed with angular palmettes, serrated leaves, split arabesques and small birds and blossoms drawn in straight lines rather than curves, which is exactly how the villages around Heriz translate a court pattern onto a village loom. The 4 corners carry ivory spandrels with scrolling vinework, and the main navy border alternates rosettes and shield shaped cartouches between reciprocal guard stripes in red and green. If you like this kind of bold angular drawing, it sits squarely in the family of geometric Persian rugs rather than the fine curvilinear city weaves.

A Deep Red Field with Navy, Ivory and Teal

The dominant color is a deep madder red with a lilac undertone that shifts with the light, warmer and brighter where the nap runs one way, darker and more wine toned where it runs the other. Against that field the medallion and the wide border read almost black navy until you get close, at which point the blue opens up. The spandrels and the outlines of the leaves are ivory, clean and unbleached rather than stark white, and they do the work of separating the red from the navy so the pattern stays legible from across a room. Scattered through the drawing are teal and petrol blue in the small flower heads, a soft sage green in the leaves and guard stripe, and touches of gold, camel and rust in the palmettes. The ivory fringe at both ends is hand-tied and intact. It is a warm, saturated palette that sits well with wood floors, leather, brass and dark painted walls.

Heriz Weaving and Village Quality

Heriz is a cluster of villages east of Tabriz, below Mount Sabalan in northwest Persia, and its reputation rests on two things. The first is the wool: the flocks graze high pasture and the fleece is unusually strong and lanolin rich, which is why a Heriz pile stays springy and resists crushing for generations. The second is the mineral-rich water used in washing and dyeing, long credited with the depth and stability of Heriz reds and blues. Weavers here work from memory and from a scaled grid rather than a full cartoon, which is why the lines are straight, the corners step instead of curving, and no two pieces are identical. Village Heriz weaving usually sits under 200 knots per square inch, and that is the point: a heavier knot on a strong foundation is what makes these rugs the workhorse of the Persian world. This one has been kept well, with full even pile throughout and no repair or restoration.