9'10" x 12'10" Persian Heriz Rug | Red Field with Navy Medallion | Excellent Condition

At 9'10" x 12'10" this Heriz sits squarely in the most useful room format we sell, and it is the reason 10x13 Persian rugs disappear from our floor faster than any other size. The pile is fine wool knotted on a cotton foundation, the handle is firm without being stiff, and the pile stands full and even across the whole field with no low spots, no repairs and no color run visible under raking light. Selvedges are original and the ends are secure with clean ivory fringe, as the reverse photograph shows. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity identifying the weaving region, materials and hand-knotted construction, and this one is in excellent condition and ready to lay flat in a room today.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a small ivory octagon drawn with an 8 petal rosette and four curling vine tips, ringed by a beaded outline and set inside a stepped navy frame that reads as a classic geometric medallion even though the filling is floral. Radiating from it are 4 large camel and olive palmettes with paired bird forms and turquoise pendants, then the field opens into an all over arrangement of blossoming stems, small blue rosette discs, 8 petal stars and slender cypress sprays. Each of the 4 corners carries a big cream and navy winged palmette, flanked below by upright vases of flowers on the short ends. The main border is navy, filled with alternating palmettes, leaf hooks and reciprocal scroll, and it is held by ivory guard stripes carrying a running vine of gold and rust rosettes, visible clearly in the corner close-up.

Color: Tomato Red, Indigo and Ivory

The field is a clear tomato red, warm rather than brown, with the slight tonal movement across the width that hand-dyed wool always shows and that keeps a large red floor from looking flat. Against it the border and medallion frame are a deep indigo navy that photographs almost violet in close-up, which is what gives this rug its contrast at a distance. Ivory does the drawing: the octagonal center, the guard stripes and the corner palmettes are all cream to bone white, and they lift the pattern out of the red instead of letting it sink. Secondary notes are saffron gold in the small rosettes, camel and olive in the large palmettes, sage and pine green in the leaves and a soft light blue in the pendants and star fillers. If you are working a room around red and burgundy Persian rugs, this palette carries oak, walnut and brass without argument.

Heriz Weaving in Northwest Persia

Heriz is a cluster of weaving villages east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan, where mineral-rich water and mountain pasture produce a wool that is unusually tough and takes dye deeply. That wool is why Heriz rugs are the ones dealers put in front of families with dogs and traffic: the fiber resists crushing and the double-wefted cotton foundation keeps the rug square on the floor. Drawing in Heriz is traditionally angular, worked from memory on straight lines and stepped outlines rather than from a full cartoon, and you can see that discipline here in the squared medallion frame and the reciprocal border. What lifts this example above ordinary village work is the density of the field filling and the precision of the small rosettes and vine tips, detail that takes a higher knot count and a steadier hand than most Heriz weavers attempt at nearly 13 feet long.