8' x 9'8" Persian Heriz Rug | Wool | Red and Navy

An 8' x 9'8" rectangular carpet knotted in Persia, with a 3/8" wool pile on a red ground. At a glance it reads as one large eight-pointed medallion floating on deep red, with pale corner panels pulling the eye out to a near-black border. The dimensions put it in the 6x9 to 8x10 band, wide enough to take a sofa and two chairs at their front feet.

Design

The drawing is the angular Heriz vocabulary throughout: nothing curves where it can turn a corner instead. A stepped star medallion sits at the centre, outlined in ivory and filled with blue, and it sends a long spear-shaped pendant north and south, each finishing in a small leaf. Off the four points of the star run hooked latch-hook arms in brown and black. The field around it is packed with short angular vines, serrated leaves and small blossoms rather than left open. Four corner spandrels in cream carry brown palmettes and blue split-leaf scrolls, and the outlines of those corners step inwards in a sawtooth line that is repeated all the way round the inner field. The main border alternates rosettes with lobed palmettes over a dark ground, flanked by two narrow guard stripes of running vine.

Colour

The field is a madder red that shifts between brick and a cooler cherry tone depending on where the light falls across the pile, clearest in the raking shot. Against it the medallion is worked in navy and a lighter denim blue, with the palest blue used for the fine detail inside the star. The corners and the outlining are cream, which does most of the work of keeping the pattern legible, and the main border is close to black. A warm camel brown appears in the palmettes and in several of the border rosettes, and there are small touches of rose pink at the medallion core and among the field flowers.

Making

Hand-knotted in Persia in all wool, with a pile clipped to 3/8", short enough that the outlines stay crisp and the sawtooth edges do not blur. The reverse, shown folded back, is evenly knotted and carries the pattern clearly through to the back. The rug is new and in excellent condition, with the ends finished in a short cream fringe.