8'5" x 11'10" Persian Heriz Rug | Geometric Medallion & Ivory Corners | Semi-Antique

A semi-antique village piece with the weight and honesty that buyers come to Heriz for. The field reads as a deep red violet, the four corners are drawn in clean ivory, and the whole thing is hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile that still stands even from end to end. At 8'5" x 11'10" it covers a full seating group without crowding the walls, and it belongs in the family of large 8x12 Persian rugs that anchor a room rather than decorate a corner. Every rug we ship travels with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The drawing is pure Heriz: a large stepped medallion built from straight lines and sharp angles, set off by 2 navy anchor pendants above and below and finished at the center with an 8 petal ivory rosette. Around it the field fills with serrated leaves, hooked palmettes and small blossoms, each one outlined in a lighter shade so the shapes stay legible from standing height. The 4 corner spandrels are worked on an ivory ground and carry the same angular vocabulary in miniature, which gives the composition its familiar cross shape. A wide navy main border runs rows of rosettes and jagged leaf forms between narrow guard stripes, and the minor borders repeat a running vine in rose and gold. Anyone who likes the vocabulary of geometric Persian rugs will recognize how disciplined this layout is for village work, and the small asymmetries between the top and bottom halves are exactly what tells you it came off a loom and not a machine.

Color Palette

The field is a red violet, closer to raspberry and old rose than to a bright fire red, and it shifts a half tone lighter or deeper as you walk around it because the wool takes the light differently in each direction. Ivory does the structural work here, holding the 4 corners, the central rosette and the fine outlines that separate one motif from the next, and it has mellowed to a soft cream rather than a stark white. Capri blue appears in small flashes inside the palmettes and leaf tips, while a darker indigo builds the medallion core and the main border so the red violet has something solid to sit against. Secondary touches of olive, terracotta and a warm gold turn up in the border rosettes and keep the palette from reading flat. It is a warm, dusty, lived-in range of color that sits comfortably with oak floors, leather, walnut and plaster walls.

Heriz Origin and Weaving Quality

Heriz is a group of villages east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan in northwest Persia. The water there is mineral rich and the local sheep grow a famously tough, high luster fleece, which is the real reason these pieces survive generations of traffic while finer city rugs wear thin. Weavers work from memory on a vertical loom rather than from a detailed cartoon, so the curved line of a workshop rug is translated into straight segments and stepped corners. Village weaving of this type is normally a moderate knot count, and the value sits in the wool, the natural dye range and the confidence of the drawing rather than in a fineness number. This example shows tight, even knotting front and back, full pile depth and original ivory cotton fringe, which together point to a rug that was well kept rather than heavily walked on. If you want to understand the signs that place a piece in the semi-antique window, our guide on how to date an Oriental rug walks through the same details we look at in the warehouse.