8'4" x 11'5" Persian Heriz Rug | Brick Red Field & Olive Stepped Medallion | Soft Antique Patina

This is a hand-knotted Persian Heriz measuring 8'4" x 11'5", woven in 100% wool on a cotton foundation and carried by a palette of brick red, reddish brown, olive and cream that has mellowed into the kind of soft, dusty surface collectors look for. The pile sits low and evenly across the whole rug, so the angular drawing reads crisply and the rug lies flat the moment it is unrolled. At just over 8 feet wide by more than 11 feet long it is the classic American room size, one of the most useful proportions in 8x11 Persian rugs, big enough to hold a sofa group or a dining table with chairs pulled out. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity stating origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the textbook Heriz statement: one large stepped and lobed medallion anchored in the center of a wide open field, framed by 4 heavy corner spandrels. Inside the medallion sits an 8 petal rosette in ivory ringed by slate blue leaves, set on a diamond reserve of olive brown that is outlined twice, first in charcoal, then in pale blue. Radiating out from it are the hooked cruciform blocks, serrated leaves and angular palmettes that make Heriz drawing instantly recognizable among geometric rugs, every curve resolved into straight lines and stepped corners because the weavers worked from memory and a coarse grid rather than a fine cartoon. The cream spandrels are filled with tendrils, split leaves and small rosettes. Three border bands complete the frame: a narrow reciprocal inner guard, a broad dark olive main band carrying alternating large rosettes and stylized blossoms, and a slim outer guard picked out in rose and blue.

A Warm Earth Toned Palette of Brick Red, Olive and Cream

Color is the reason this rug works in a modern room. The field reads as brick red shading into reddish brown and terracotta, with natural abrash streaks that lighten and darken across the width as the dye lots changed on the loom. The central medallion reserve pulls toward olive brown and khaki, a quiet counterweight to the red rather than a contrast, while the ivory rosette and the cream corner spandrels carry the light. Accents of muted slate blue and gray green trace the outlines of the leaves and blocks, and charcoal black defines the strongest lines in the drawing. Softer notes of faded rose and dusty pink surface in the border blossoms, visible in the corner close-up. The overall effect is warm, low contrast and very easy to live with: no sharp jewel tones, nothing that fights a painted wall, just the settled earth tones of aged madder, walnut brown and undyed wool.

Heriz Origin and Village Weaving Quality

Heriz is a cluster of weaving villages east of Tabriz in northwest Persia, below the slopes of Mount Sabalan. The mineral rich water there is credited with the toughness and glassy luster of the local wool, which is why Heriz rugs are the ones that survive 4 generations of family traffic and still hold their drawing. This piece is a true village weave: a sturdy cotton warp and weft, a thick single knot pile, and the honest bold scale of pattern that comes with a coarser count rather than a workshop count. The wool itself tells you as much as the knot count, and the low even pile with no thin spots, together with the intact ivory selvedges and fringe you can see in the folded corner photographs, shows an old rug that was well made and then cared for. If you want to understand how weavers, dyes and wear combine to place a piece like this in time, our guide on how to date an Oriental rug walks through exactly what to look for.