8' x 11'2" Persian Heriz Rug | Brick Red Geometric Medallion | Ivory Corner Spandrels

This is a classic village Heriz in the size most American rooms actually need, and it is one of the more confidently drawn examples we have had on the floor. The pile is 100% wool at 3/8", knotted onto a cotton foundation, and the wool has that slightly waxy handle that northwest Persia is known for. The brick red field carries a large stepped medallion with ivory pendants, framed by deep navy corner brackets and a navy main border of hooked rosettes. Wear is even across the whole surface and the ends and sides are sound. Shipped with a certificate of authenticity, it sits comfortably in the range buyers search when they are shopping 8 x 11 Persian rugs for a main room.

Design and Motifs

Everything here is drawn with a straightedge and a village weaver's memory rather than a paper cartoon, which is exactly what collectors want from this weaving group. The center holds an 8 point ivory rosette inside a red and navy stepped medallion, with long anchor-shaped pendants running north and south toward the ends. Serrated leaves, hooked palmettes and small angular flowerheads fill the field between the medallion and the corner pieces, and the corners themselves are drawn as large ivory brackets with stepped outlines that echo the medallion shape. The main border alternates lozenge rosettes with small cruciform stars, contained by narrow guard stripes of running vine. If you like the architectural, straight-line vocabulary of geometric Persian rugs, this piece is a textbook statement of it.

Color Palette

The field is a warm brick red that shifts between terracotta and a deeper madder tone as you walk around it, a natural abrash that flat photography tends to flatten out. Against that sits a very dark navy, almost black at the center of the medallion and in the main border, which is what gives the drawing its hard outline. Ivory does the lifting: it forms the corner spandrels, the central rosette, the outlining of the palmettes and many of the small stars, and it keeps a dark red and navy rug from reading heavy. Scattered through the field are softer secondary tones, a dusty rose in the leaf outlines, mid blue in the little flowerheads, and olive to old-gold touches in the rosettes and border stars. Soft pinks and a pale salmon appear where the wool has mellowed with age, which is the color of a real vintage piece rather than a washed one.

Origin and Weaving Quality

Heriz is a cluster of villages east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan, and its reputation rests on two things: the wool and the water. The local sheep produce a tough, high-lanolin fleece, and the mineral-rich mountain water used in the wash is credited with the particular sheen and the resistance to abrasion these rugs show decades later. Weavers there work from memory on a cotton warp and weft, which is why the curves come out as angles and every Heriz is a little different from its neighbor. The back photograph shows a tight, regular knot with the design reading clearly through, sound selvages and no repairs, which is the kind of honest village construction that stays underfoot in a busy household for generations. Pieces like this one are the reason Heriz is still the most recognized name in Persian floor covering outside the city workshops.