8'9" x 11'5" Persian Heriz Rug | Stepped Geometric Medallion | Perfect Condition Wool Pile

This is a full room-size Heriz in the format most buyers are hunting for, a true 9 x 12 Persian rug that measures 8'9" x 11'5" and sits under a sofa group or a 8 seat dining table without crowding the walls. The pile is dense wool on a cotton foundation, the handle is heavy and flat, and the ends and sides are original with no reduction. Condition is perfect: even pile from corner to corner, clear drawing, and colors that have settled rather than faded. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted, its origin and its materials.

Design and Motifs

The field carries a large stepped diamond medallion outlined in ivory, with a small rosette center and toothed pendants running north and south to a pair of navy anchor motifs. Four heavy ivory spandrels close the corners, each filled with angular leaves, hooked vines and blossoms drawn in straight lines rather than curves, which is the signature of this weaving group and the reason collectors file it under geometric Persian rugs. Between the medallion and the spandrels the ground is packed with palmettes, serrated leaves, small cypress forms and paired birds worked in salmon, navy and light blue. The main border alternates dark rosette panels with salmon cartouches, framed by narrow reciprocal guard stripes. Drawing is confident and slightly irregular from cartoon to cartoon, exactly as a hand-drawn village piece should be.

A Deep Red Field with Navy, Ivory and Salmon

Red is the dominant color and it is a warm brick red rather than a cherry or a burgundy, with a faint abrash across the field that shifts a shade lighter toward one end. The medallion outline, the corner spandrels and the interior tracery are ivory to soft cream, and that ivory is what gives the rug its graphic punch from across a room. Navy blue does the structural work: the outer main border, the two pendant motifs at the top and bottom of the medallion, and the small blocks inside the spandrels. Salmon and dusty rose fill the secondary palmettes and the border cartouches, cooled by touches of light sky blue and a quiet camel in the leaf forms and minor guard stripes. The whole palette is warm, and it sits well with walnut and oak furniture, dark leather, and both white and clay colored walls.

Heriz: The Weaving Villages East of Tabriz

Heriz is a cluster of villages in northwest Persia, east of Tabriz on the slopes below Mount Sabalan. The water there is mineral rich and the local sheep grow a famously tough, high luster fleece, which is why a Heriz wears like nothing else at its price and why so many century old examples are still in daily service. Weaving is done on the horizontal village loom from memory and a simple cartoon, so the draftsmanship is angular by nature: straight lines, stepped outlines, bold scale. Knot count in the villages generally runs below 200 knots per square inch, and that is by design, since the value here is in the wool, the dye and the heavy handle rather than in fineness. Buyers who want the same northwest Persian palette rendered in curved, workshop drawing usually look at Persian Tabriz rugs, but for a room that takes real traffic, this is the weave that earns its keep.