7'7" x 10'10" Persian Heriz Rug | All Over Palmette Design | Semi-Antique Red Field

This is a semi-antique Heriz woven in northwest Persia, a genuine village piece that has already lived a life on a floor and come through it in excellent shape. Instead of the familiar big central medallion, the weaver covered the whole brick red field with an all over pattern of palmettes, serrated leaves and hooked vines, which makes the rug read calmer and more forgiving under furniture. The wool is the tough, lanolin-rich fleece the Heriz district is known for, the pile has settled to an even low height with the lustre that only decades of use produce, and the cotton fringe and selvedges are sound. At 7'7" x 10'10" it sits squarely in the most useful room size we sell, so if you are shopping 8x11 Persian rugs this one covers a seating group without crowding the walls. It ships with our certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The field is an all over design built from repeating rows of angular star rosettes and broad palmettes, linked by long serrated leaves and curling split vines that the weaver has drawn in straight lines and clean steps rather than smooth curves. Small ivory flowerheads and paired blossoms fill the ground between the larger elements, so there is almost no empty red left anywhere in the field. The main border on a deep navy ground carries alternating rosettes and turtle-style palmettes with hooked brackets between them, and it is framed on both sides by narrow guard stripes of meandering vine on ivory and yellow green. Look at the corners in the detail photographs: the border pattern resolves by hand rather than by formula, with small drawing adjustments where the motifs meet, which is the honest signature of a village loom and one of the things collectors look for in older Heriz weaving.

A Brick Red Field Framed in Indigo

The ground is a warm brick red that shifts between terracotta and a deeper rose depending on the light and the direction of the pile, the natural abrash of a hand-dyed wool rug rather than a printed flat tone. Against it the palmettes and rosettes are drawn in indigo and a lighter sky blue, with ivory doing most of the outlining so every motif stays crisp. Olive and mustard green appear in the long serrated leaves, and soft salmon pink, dark brown and a touch of gold turn up in the smaller filler flowers. The main border is a near black navy that pulls the whole field together and gives the rug a strong finished edge, while the yellow green and ivory guard stripes keep that dark frame from feeling heavy. The overall effect is rich but not loud, and the red reads warm against oak, walnut and stone flooring alike.

Heriz: Village Weaving East of Tabriz

Heriz is a group of villages east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan, where mineral-rich water and hard mountain pasture produce wool famous for its strength and its ability to take dye deeply. Weavers there work from memory on cotton warps, which is exactly why the drawing is angular and stepped instead of curvilinear, and it is why these rugs rank among the most durable geometric Persian rugs on the market. Village Heriz weaving normally runs under 200 knots per square inch, and that comparatively coarse, heavy knot is a feature rather than a shortcoming: it produces a thick, stable rug that takes decades of traffic and keeps getting better as the pile polishes. Turn this one over and the back shows tight, regular rows across the full width, evidence of a weaver who kept her tension honest from the first row to the last.