7'8" x 10'5" Persian Heriz Rug | Geometric Medallion with Ivory Spandrels | Excellent Condition

At 7'8" x 10'5" this Heriz lands squarely in the most practical footprint a Persian rug comes in, which is why 8x10 Persian rugs move faster than any other size we stock: it floats a sofa and two chairs with pile to spare on all 4 sides. The whole rug is built around one large stepped medallion in charcoal and salmon set on a madder red field, with deep ivory spandrels cut into the 4 corners and a charcoal main border carrying red and gold rosettes. Pile is hand-spun wool on a cotton foundation, the handle is firm and heavy the way good village weaving should be, and the condition is excellent: full pile, crisp outlines, tidy ends and sides. It ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The medallion is drawn in the straight-line Heriz manner: an outer 8 lobe star frame, a second ring of hooked cartouches filled with little flower heads, and at the very center an 8 petal rosette on a red ground with a single gold eye. Above and below it, long pendant forms run toward the ends, flanked by serrated leaves and palmettes that reach out into the field like branches. The spandrels are the showpiece of this piece, large ivory panels filled with scrolling vine, cloudband forms and tiny animal-like flourishes, each one boxed in by a fine black pearl line. Collectors of geometric Persian rugs look for exactly this balance, a bold loom-drawn skeleton carrying a surprising amount of small detail. The border system is 5 bands deep: a wide rosette and vine main border, inner and outer reciprocal guard stripes in red and ivory, and narrow pearl lines that keep the field and border from bleeding into each other.

A Closer Look at the Colors

The field is a true madder red that reads brick in daylight and darker, almost wine, under lamplight, with gentle horizontal variation across the width that tells you the yarn came from small dye lots rather than a vat. Against it, the medallion core is a charcoal that leans aubergine, outlined in a clear salmon pink that repeats in the pendants and in the vine of the main border. The spandrels and parts of the inner guard are a warm ivory with a faint oatmeal cast, bright enough to frame the red without going chalky. Scattered through the drawing are olive gold, mustard, a muted teal green, slate blue and a few passages of near black used purely for outlining leaves. The result sits comfortably with other red and burgundy Persian rugs but is far livelier in person than a single color name suggests, since the soft blues and olives cool the red down and keep the whole thing from reading as one flat block of warmth.

Heriz Origin and Weaving Quality

Heriz is a cluster of villages east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan in northwest Persia. Two local facts explain the reputation: mineral-rich water, which gives the dyes their depth, and famously tough mountain wool that resists crushing under furniture and foot traffic for generations. Weavers there work from memory and from simple loom-drawn plans rather than fully painted cartoons, which is why the lines are angular, the corners step rather than curve, and no two Heriz rugs of the same pattern are ever identical. Village knotting here usually runs under 200 knots per square inch, and that is the point: a thicker knot and a heavier handle, not the fine curvilinear drawing of a city workshop. The back photograph shows the weave clearly, straight rows, even knotting and a firm cotton foundation. On a rug of this size and condition that combination of dense wool pile and honest village drawing is what makes it a floor you can live on rather than one you protect.