8'11" x 11'11" Persian Heriz Rug | Gold Field, Serrated Star Medallion | Perfect Condition

This is a Heriz in a color key you do not see often: instead of the usual brick red ground, the weaver laid the whole field in warm gold and let a deep chocolate brown medallion and a brown border do the heavy work. At 8'11" x 11'11" it sits squarely in the most useful room size there is, covering a seating group without crowding the walls, and it is one of the more unusual pieces among our 9x12 Persian rugs. The pile is a full 1/2" of dense wool over a cotton foundation, the handle is heavy and firm, and the condition is perfect with no thinning, no repair and clean original selvedges and fringe. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted and Persian made.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is classic Heriz architecture handled with an unusually steady hand. A large 8 point serrated star medallion anchors the center, built in layers: a small dark rosette core, a rust cartouche ring, then a salmon star outlined in gold, then the chocolate brown outer star with hooked leaf arms and paired palmettes running north and south. The field around it is not empty, which is where this piece separates itself from ordinary village work; it carries a full skeleton of angular vines, serrated sickle leaves and stylized blossoms, all drawn in straight lines and stepped angles rather than curves. Four large corner spandrels in rust frame the field, each filled with its own leaf and rosette program, and they carry stepped outlines that echo the medallion. The main border is a brown ground running an alternating rhythm of 8 petal rosettes and lobed palmettes joined by a continuous vine, with narrow reciprocal guard stripes on either side, so the eye reads a clean frame at every edge. Buyers who want this kind of angular drawing will find the same vocabulary across our geometric Persian rugs, though few of them are drawn this densely.

A Gold Field With Rust, Brown and Beige

The palette is the reason to buy this rug. The field is a warm honey gold, closer to apricot where the light catches the wool and closer to wheat where it does not, and because the wool is glossy the tone shifts as you walk around it. Set against that gold, the medallion runs deep chocolate brown with a rust and salmon center, so the contrast is strong without being loud. The corner spandrels and the inner frame are a dusty rust that leans toward terracotta, and the main border is the darkest value in the rug, a coffee brown that reads almost black at a distance and resolves into warm brown with gold vine work up close. Through the field and the spandrels the weaver scattered accents of soft sage green, muted olive, ivory and a dull rose, which keep the leaf forms legible against the gold. The outer guard stripe and the fringe are ivory, and that pale edge gives the whole composition a clean border. Overall this is a warm, earth toned rug that works with oak floors, walnut furniture, leather and cream walls rather than fighting them.

Heriz Weaving and the Quality of This Piece

Heriz is a group of weaving villages east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan, and its reputation rests on two things: the mineral rich water the sheep drink, which is credited with the famously tough and lustrous local wool, and a village drawing tradition that builds curves out of straight lines and stepped corners. Heriz rugs are floor rugs first, meant to be lived on, and a good one outlasts the family that bought it. Most village Heriz weaving sits below 200 knots per square inch, so the interest here is not extreme fineness but density and honesty of construction: the back shown against the ruler is tight and regular, the knot rows are even, the wool is heavy, and the 1/2" pile has enough body to take traffic for decades. What lifts this particular example above the average is the detail packed into the field and the discipline in the border, the sort of drawing that takes a weaver who has done it for a long time. Combined with a gold ground instead of the expected red, it is a Heriz that will not look like the one in the next house.