9'4" x 11'10" Persian Heriz Rug | Brown Field with Rust and Ivory Medallion | Excellent Condition

Brown grounds are uncommon in Heriz weaving, and that is the first thing you notice about this 9'4" x 11'10" piece: a deep chocolate field, quiet rather than loud, with a stepped medallion in rust, ivory and near-black navy sitting squarely at the center. It is hand-knotted in wool at a 3/8" pile on a cotton foundation, the drawing is all straight lines and angles, and the wool has the dry lustre that village looms in the Heriz district are known for. The pile is even from end to end, the sides and ends are sound, and the rug is in excellent condition. It ships with our certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials and construction.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a stepped, many sided medallion outlined in ivory and navy, with a small brown lozenge at its heart and serrated hooked leaves radiating out to 4 directions. Long pendants rise and fall from the top and bottom of the medallion, each drawn as a toothed cypress form in rust and navy. The 4 corner spandrels are ivory, the brightest passages in the rug, and they are packed with angular vine, hooked palmettes and small blossoms that step down in staircase outlines rather than curving. The brown field between medallion and corners is not left open: it is filled edge to edge with small rosettes, birdlike hooked motifs and blue vinework typical of the best village drawing in this group. A brown main border carries alternating rosettes and angular vine heads, flanked by narrow guard stripes with an ivory barberpole running the full perimeter. If this kind of angular drawing is what you are after, it sits at the heart of the geometric Persian rugs tradition.

A Field of Chocolate Brown, Rust and Ivory

The field runs a soft chocolate to mocha brown with gentle abrash, so that some passages pull toward warm coffee and others toward a cooler grey brown as the light moves across the pile. Against it, the rust reads as a muted salmon terracotta rather than a hot orange, used for the medallion arms, the pendants and the scattered blossoms. The navy is deep enough to look nearly black in the border diamonds and the corner panels, and it drops back to a clear mid blue in the smaller vine and bird motifs, which gives the field its flicker of cool color. Ivory does the structural work: it outlines the medallion, fills the 4 spandrels and runs as a thin zigzag through the guard stripes, so the eye always knows where the design begins and ends. This is an earth tone palette that lives easily with walnut and oak furniture, leather, brass and warm white walls, and it hides everyday traffic far better than a light ground rug.

Heriz Weaving East of Tabriz

Heriz is a group of villages east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan in northwest Persia. The water there is mineral rich, and the local flocks grow a famously tough, springy wool that takes dye well and resists crushing, which is the practical reason Heriz rugs have a reputation for outlasting the houses they are bought for. Weavers here work from memory and from village conventions rather than from a fully painted cartoon, so the drawing is angular by necessity and character: straight lines, stepped outlines, big confident forms scaled to a room rather than to a display case. Knot counts in village Heriz work generally sit under 200 knots per square inch, and that is exactly right for the design, since a coarser, heavier weave is what gives this rug its weight underfoot and its long service life. At 9'4" x 11'10" it covers a standard seating group or a 10 seat table with room to spare, and you can see how it compares with other 9x12 Persian rugs in the collection.