8'6" x 11' Persian Heriz Rug | Ruby Red Geometric Medallion | Ivory Corner Spandrels | Excellent Condition

This is a full Heriz statement piece at 8'6" x 11', hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and still carrying a firm 3/8" pile with no thin spots, no repairs and no repiling. The drawing is pure Heriz: one large stepped medallion suspended in a ruby red field, four ivory latch-hook anchors set around it, and deep ivory spandrels that cut the corners at hard angles instead of curves. The condition is excellent, the sides and ends are original, and the back photograph shows the knot structure and the wool weft clearly for anyone who wants to check the weave before buying. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a hand-knotted Persian Heriz, and it sits squarely in the family of geometric Persian rugs that read as formal from a distance and tribal up close.

Design and Motifs

The center medallion is built in stepped outlines, a black and rose core holding a small 4 armed cross and rosette, then a salmon band, then a denim blue collar that pushes the whole shape forward off the red ground. Radiating out of it are stiff angular palmettes, serrated leaves and hooked vine arms, all drawn on the diagonal the way village looms east of Tabriz draw them, with straight lines only and no curved cartoon. The 4 ivory cartouche motifs around the medallion each carry their own miniature geometric panel, and the ivory corner spandrels repeat that idea at larger scale with olive and brown figures inside them. The main border is a black ground running rose and blue rosettes alternating with upright hooked elements, framed by narrow guard stripes of reciprocal sawtooth and a fine barber pole outline. Small stray birds and boteh fillers appear in the open red areas, the kind of loom-side improvisation that tells you this was woven from memory rather than copied square by square.

The Color Palette in Detail

The field is a true ruby red, warm and slightly plummy where the wool takes the dye deeply, lightening toward a dusty salmon rose through the open ground and around the medallion arms. Against it the main border reads almost pure black, which is what gives this rug its weight and makes it work against pale walls and light oak floors. The third color is ivory, used in the spandrels and the 4 anchor medallions, and it is clean rather than yellowed, so the corners genuinely pop. Secondary accents do a lot of quiet work: denim and slate blue in the medallion collar and border rosettes, olive and sage green in the leaf forms, camel and walnut brown in the palmette outlines, and small hits of rust orange and soft pink inside the border flowers. The result is a red and black rug with enough blue and green in it to pick up cool upholstery instead of fighting it, and the wool has a natural sheen that shifts the red lighter or deeper depending on which end of the room you view it from.

Heriz Origin and Weaving Quality

Heriz is a cluster of weaving villages east of Tabriz on the slopes below Mount Sabalan in northwest Persia, and its reputation comes from two things: the mineral-rich water of the region, which gives the local wool an unusually hard, glossy fiber, and a weaving tradition that translates court medallion designs into bold straight-line geometry. That combination is why Heriz rugs are the ones dealers put in the rooms that actually get used. The weave here is the honest village standard, a sturdy single weft knot count with a heavy handle and a thick, springy pile that will take decades of traffic without shedding its drawing. At 8'6" x 11' it covers a standard large seating group with the front legs of the sofa on the rug, which is exactly the proportion buyers come looking for in 8x11 Persian rugs, and because it is excellent and unrestored it is a piece you buy once.