8'1" x 11'7" Persian Heriz Rug | Stepped Geometric Medallion | Ivory Spandrels, Indigo Border

This is the Heriz that people picture when they think of a Persian room rug: a deep madder red field, a big stepped diamond medallion drawn in indigo and ivory, and four ivory corners crowded with angular flowers. It is hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile that still stands up full and even across the whole surface, and the condition is excellent with no repairs visible in the field or borders. At 8'1" x 11'7" it falls into the 8 x 11 Persian rugs bracket, the most usable large room format there is, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it was hand-knotted in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a stepped diamond medallion outlined twice in ivory, filled with a cruciform of serrated leaves in sky blue and rose around a small rose and ivory rosette. Above and below it sit two indigo pendants ending in hexagonal cartouches, and the whole medallion group floats inside a wider diamond of near-black indigo that reads almost like a shadow behind the design. The red field around it is packed with the angular vocabulary that makes geometric Persian rugs so easy to live with: hooked vines, saw-edged leaves, blossom heads and small forked branches, every line drawn straight or on a clean diagonal with no curves anywhere. The 4 ivory spandrels repeat the same leaves at a larger scale against a lighter ground, and the main indigo border runs a chain of palmettes, eight point cruciform rosettes and vine hooks between narrow reciprocal guard stripes of rose and ivory.

The Color Palette

The field is a warm madder red that shifts gently from a brick tone near the borders to a slightly lighter, rosier red through the middle, the natural abrash you get from hand-dyed wool worked in separate lots. Against it the borders and the medallion outline go to a very dark indigo that reads as black in low light and opens up to blue where the light hits it, visible in the close photographs. The ivory is not a flat white but a soft cream that has warmed with age, and it carries the corner drawing and the outline work that keeps the whole composition legible from across a room. Secondary colors are used in small doses and do all the lifting: sky blue in the leaves and in the blossoms of the corner panels, dusty rose and salmon in the vine hooks, pale camel in the outer guard stripe, and touches of soft green in the pendant cartouches. Red, navy and ivory in these proportions sit comfortably with wood floors, leather, brass and both cool and warm wall colors.

Heriz Weaving and Quality

Heriz is not a single town but a group of villages east of Tabriz in northwest Persia, spread below the slopes of Mount Sabalan. The water there runs through mineral-rich rock, and local weavers have always said it is what gives the district's wool its famous toughness and its ability to hold madder red without going dull. Weaving is done from memory rather than from a cartoon, which is why the drawing is bold and angular and why no two Heriz rugs of the same design are ever quite identical. The back of this piece shows even, firmly packed rows on a cotton foundation, the kind of village weave that is built for daily use rather than for a display wall. Village work of this type usually sits under 200 knots per square inch by design, since the value is in the wool quality, the dye and the heavy handle, and this rug has all three along with a pile that has clearly been looked after.