8'1" x 12'3" Persian Heriz Rug | Geometric Medallion with Ivory Corner Spandrels | Excellent Condition

This is a full room size 8'1" x 12'3" Persian Heriz, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile that still stands evenly from selvage to selvage. It is the classic village statement piece: a deep madder red field, a dark navy stepped medallion anchored by a single 8 petal rosette, and crisp ivory spandrels filling all 4 corners. The drawing is entirely angular, built from straight lines and stepped outlines rather than curves, which is exactly how the weavers east of Tabriz have always translated a floral cartoon into knots. The wool has the dry, glassy handle that Heriz is known for, and it has taken on the soft sheen that only comes from good fleece and years of careful keeping. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted and Persian in origin.

Design and Motifs

The center of the field carries a large stepped medallion outlined in navy, with serrated arms reaching out along both axes and a small rosette at the exact heart of the rug. Four hooked cartouches sit inside the medallion, each holding a blocky angular bouquet, and long pendant finials extend above and below toward the ends of the field. Around it the field is filled with big serrated leaves, angular palmettes and stiff flowering branches that radiate outward rather than repeat in a grid, a drawing habit that separates good Heriz work from later copies. The ivory corner spandrels are drawn in the same vocabulary, packed with small hooked vines, rosettes and tiny animal-like fillers that only appear when you get close. Three border bands frame the composition: a wide navy main border of alternating palmettes and rosettes, and two narrow flanking guards of running vine. If you like this kind of angular, room-filling drawing, it sits squarely in the family of geometric Persian rugs that hold their own in a busy room.

Color: Madder Red, Ivory and Deep Navy

The field is a warm madder red that shifts subtly between a brick tone and a deeper wine tone as the light moves across the pile, the natural result of hand-spun wool taking dye at slightly different rates. Against it, the medallion, the outer border and the small corner boxes are worked in a navy so dark it reads almost black at a distance and only opens into blue in direct light. The ivory is a true creamy white rather than a bleached white, and it does the heavy lifting in the 4 spandrels, in the outlines of the medallion arms and in the small dots that run along every guard stripe. Secondary tones do the rest of the work: a soft salmon rose in the radiating leaves, a muted sage and olive green in the vine work, camel and light brown in the cartouche grounds, and small touches of pale blue in the border rosettes. Nothing shouts, and no single accent color dominates, which is why a red Heriz of this scale sits comfortably with both antique furniture and plain modern upholstery.

Heriz: Village Weaving East of Tabriz

Heriz is a cluster of weaving villages east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan, and the rugs made there are built to be walked on for generations. The local water is mineral rich and the sheep grazing those high pastures grow a famously tough, resilient fleece, which is why a Heriz pile wears down slowly and evenly instead of shedding or crushing. Weavers there work from memory and from simple scaled drawings rather than a full workshop cartoon, so the geometry is drawn in straight lines with stepped corners and the two halves of a rug are never mechanically identical. Village Heriz is usually knotted below 200 knots per square inch, and the coarser weave is a feature rather than a shortcut: fewer, larger knots on a stout cotton foundation give the rug its weight, its body and its long life. The back photograph shows exactly that structure, with a firm, regular knot line and clean color separation. At 8'1" x 12'3" this is a true room size piece, and it belongs with the other large Persian rugs we import directly.