7'8" x 11'3" Persian Heriz Rug | Geometric Medallion | Rust Red Village Weave

This 7'8" x 11'3" Heriz is the northwest Persian format in its purest form: one stepped medallion held in the center of a rust red field, ivory spandrels filling the 4 corners, and a drawing that never once curves when it can turn a corner instead. The pile is wool on a cotton foundation, heavy in the hand and even across the whole field, and the condition is excellent. It falls squarely in the 8 x 11 Persian rugs range, wide enough to carry a full seating group with the front legs of every piece on wool. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center medallion is built from stacked stepped outlines, ivory against charcoal against red, with a small 8 petal rosette core in camel and blue and long serrated pendants running out top and bottom. Four hooked cartouches sit inside the medallion frame, each one filled with a curled vine that reads almost like a bird in profile. Beyond it the field is packed with angular palmettes, serrated leaves, small cross forms and tiny detached rosettes, and the diagonal lines dropping from the corner spandrels divide the surface into clear zones the way the best geometric Persian rugs always do. The main border runs a repeating angular vine with hooked palmettes, flanked by narrow guard stripes of reciprocal sawtooth. Look at the 4 corners and the quadrants of the field and none of them match exactly, which is the signature of drawing done from memory at the loom rather than copied line by line from a cartoon.

A Rust Red Field with Ivory Corners

The ground is a warm madder rust, brick in the studio light and closer to tomato red where the wool catches the sun, with gentle abrash banding that lifts and drops across the width and proves the dye lots were hand mixed. Against it the ivory spandrels read almost white and give the composition its air. The medallion outlines are near black charcoal and deep navy, and inside them sit the accent colors that make this rug worth reading up close: teal green in the leaf forms, soft powder blue in the small vine work, camel and olive gold in the rosette centers, and a dusty terracotta that bridges the red field to the ivory. Anyone shopping red and burgundy rugs will find this one sits comfortably with warm woods, brass and leather, and it holds its own against white walls without going pink.

Heriz Weaving East of Tabriz

Heriz is a cluster of villages on the slopes east of Tabriz, below Mount Sabalan, and the reputation of the district rests on two things. The first is the water, rich in minerals, which produces a fleece with unusual strength and a faint sheen that deepens rather than dulls with foot traffic. The second is the drawing discipline: straight lines, stepped corners, no curved arabesque, a style that lets a village weaver produce a monumental composition on a coarser knot. Village Heriz work typically runs under 200 knots per square inch, and the trade off is deliberate, since a thicker knot on a strong cotton foundation is what makes these rugs last through generations of hard use. The back of this piece shows exactly that: regular, well packed rows, level selvages, and undyed cotton warps ending in a clean fringe.