8'10" x 11'10" Persian Heriz Rug | Geometric Star Medallion, Ivory Spandrels | Semi-Antique, Excellent Condition

This is a semi-antique Heriz in the size most American rooms were built for, a true room-size piece at 8'10" x 11'10" that sits in the familiar 9x12 class without the filler and repetition you see in newer production. The pile is wool on a cotton foundation, hand-knotted in the villages east of Tabriz, and the surface has the slightly uneven, hand-drawn quality that tells you a weaver, not a cartoon printer, controlled the line. The wool is dense, low and even, with good luster and no thin areas, and the ivory selvedges and fringes shown in the close-up photographs are sound. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming the origin, the hand-knotted construction and the materials. Buyers looking across other 9 x 12 Persian rugs will notice how much more drawing is packed into this field than the market average.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an 8 point stepped star medallion built from concentric outlines in navy, teal and camel, with a small ivory and red rosette at the exact core and 4 boxed cartouches set at the diagonals, each filled with a miniature gold and blue flowering sprig. Above and below the medallion, long pendants run out into hooked, comb-like finials that anchor the vertical axis. The maroon field around it is filled with angular palmettes, serrated leaves, hooked vine scrolls and tiny bird-like blossom heads, all drawn in straight lines and stepped diagonals rather than curves, which is exactly how this district works. Large ivory spandrels fill the 4 corners with their own scrolling vine and blossom drawing and give the composition its contrast. The main navy border carries alternating rosettes, turtle palmettes and angular leaf forms, framed on both sides by camel-gold minor guards with running floral meander. This is squarely in the family of geometric Persian rugs, where the strength comes from bold shapes rather than fine curvature.

Color Palette

The field reads as a deep maroon that shifts toward brick and oxblood depending on the light, warmer and brighter in the overhead shots, deeper and more wine-toned in the raking floor photographs. Against it, the border is a near-black indigo navy that gives the rug its weight and keeps the pattern from floating. The ivory spandrels and the ivory hooked outlines inside the medallion are a soft cream rather than a bleached white, which is how naturally dyed wool ages. Between those three anchors runs a full secondary palette: camel gold in the guard stripes and the cartouche fillings, a muted teal to sky blue in the leaf forms and outlines, salmon pink in the medallion pendants and in parts of the border drawing, and small strokes of olive green and chocolate brown along the serrated edges. Faint abrash, the gentle horizontal banding of tone across the maroon ground, is visible in the field and is a sign of small dye lots and hand-dyed wool, not a flaw. Overall the rug sits comfortably in the red and burgundy range while carrying enough blue and ivory to work beside cooler furnishings.

Heriz Origin and Weaving Quality

Heriz is a group of weaving villages east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan in northwest Persia. The water there is mineral rich, and the local sheep produce a famously tough, high-luster wool that resists crushing and only polishes with foot traffic, which is why 80 and 100 year old Heriz rugs still turn up with usable pile. Weavers in these villages work from memory and from simple village drawings rather than a fully detailed workshop cartoon, so the design is resolved in straight lines, stepped corners and angular medallions. Knot counts here are typically under 200 per square inch, and that is not a shortcoming: the coarser knot on a heavy cotton warp and weft is precisely what makes the rug structural and long-lived. On the back of this piece you can read clean, regular knot rows and tight, even packing, with the pattern coming through sharply, all marks of a competent and consistent weaver. It is the kind of durable, honest village weaving that has made Heriz the most collected room-size Persian rug in the American market for more than a century.