7'5" x 11' Persian Heriz Rug | Salmon Field with Navy Floral Border | Semi-Antique Village Weave

This is a semi-antique Heriz in the size people actually ask for and rarely find in good condition, a true 7'5" x 11" room piece that reads as one of the more usable large Persian rugs we carry. The field has mellowed to a warm salmon over decades of use, the wool still carries its natural sheen in the close-up shots, and the pile is even from end to end with no low areas or repairs. Ends and selvages are intact, the ivory fringe is original, and the handle is firm the way a well-woven village rug should feel. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials, size and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is classic Heriz: a large stepped medallion built from straight lines and right angles, with a small ivory and navy rosette at the dead center and four radiating cruciform lobes around it. Above and below the medallion sit hooked pendant finials, and the 4 corners are filled with deep navy spandrels carrying serrated leaves and curling vine tips in camel and sky blue. Between medallion and spandrels the salmon ground is packed with angular palmettes, hooked leaf forms and tiny checkerboard fillers, so nothing in the field is left empty. The main border runs on a near-black navy ground with alternating flowering plants and rosettes, flanked by camel guard stripes with a running vine. If you like geometric medallion rugs, this is the pattern the category was built on.

Salmon, Navy and Sage: The Color Story

The field is a soft salmon that shifts toward brick and terracotta where the wool takes the light, the kind of tone that only comes from age rather than washing. Against it the border is a deep inky navy, almost black at the outer edge, which throws the pattern forward and gives the rug a strong frame in a big room. The secondary palette is what makes this one interesting: a clear sky blue inside the medallion and across the leaf forms, a dusty sage green that turns almost olive in the spandrels and guard stripes, plus camel and chalky ivory used as outline colors to keep the angular shapes crisp. Small touches of aubergine and dark brown appear in the border flowers. It is a warm rug overall, easy with wood floors, leather, brass and cream walls, and forgiving of the traffic a 7'5" x 11' rug sees.

Woven in the Heriz Villages of Northwest Persia

Heriz rugs come from a group of villages east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan, where the mineral-rich water and the local flocks produce a wool that is famously tough and slightly glassy. Weavers there work from memory rather than a full cartoon, which is why the lines are angular and the two halves of a medallion never match perfectly, and why these rugs have a drawn-by-hand energy that finer city workshops trade away for precision. Knot counts in the villages generally sit under 200 knots per square inch, and that heavier knot on a cotton foundation is exactly what makes a Heriz last through generations of daily use. The softened dyes, the wear-free but clearly settled pile and the intact original ends all point to a piece with real age behind it; our guide on how to date an Oriental rug walks through the same signals we used here.