9'4" x 12'3" Persian Heriz Rug | Salmon Field with Ivory Corner Spandrels | Semi-Antique Wool Pile

This 9'4" x 12'3" Persian Heriz is a semi-antique piece from the weaving villages northeast of Tabriz, hand-knotted on a cotton foundation with a dense all-wool pile that still stands full and even across the whole field. It is drawn in a softer, more floral register than the usual Heriz, with a layered medallion built out of curved palmette lobes instead of hard-cornered blocks, and the salmon ground has taken on the mellow, slightly uneven glow that only decades of honest wear and good dye can produce. At 112 inches by 147 inches it covers a genuine room, so it belongs with the large room-size Persian rugs rather than anything you would float in front of a sofa. Buyers who like to put a date on a weave should read our guide on how to date an Oriental rug, since the wool, the wefting and the palette all point the same direction here. Every rug we ship travels with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an 8 petal rosette set inside a small dark green core, and that rosette sits on a star of long curved petals which is itself framed by 8 large paisley-shaped lobes filled with serrated leaf work. Above and below the medallion, two crowned palmette pendants reach out into the field, each one hooked with fine tendrils. The open salmon ground is not left bare: it carries floating leaf sprays, small blossoms and curling vine tips that keep the eye moving between the medallion and the corners. The 4 corners are given broad ivory spandrels drawn with big scrolling serrated leaves, rose palmettes and blue-grey blossoms, and the contrast between those pale corners and the warm field is what gives the rug its structure from across a room. A narrow reciprocal fret guard separates field from border, then the wide main border runs a march of wheel rosettes and shield palmettes linked by long dark leaves, closed by a small flowering vine on the outer guard stripe. It is Heriz architecture drawn with a workshop hand, curved where village work is usually angular.

Salmon Field, Ivory Corners, Deep Navy Border

The field is salmon, a warm coral-red that leans terracotta under lamplight and lifts toward dusty rose in daylight, with gentle abrash bands where the weaver moved from one dye lot to the next. Against it, the corner spandrels read as a soft antique ivory with a faint cream cast, and the medallion petals repeat that ivory in thin outlines so the whole center appears to be drawn in light on a red ground. Inside the medallion and the corner leaves there are quiet sage and olive greens, a muted slate blue, and small touches of true rose and brick, all of them low in saturation, which is exactly what a buyer wants in a semi-antique piece. The main border is the anchor: a deep navy that goes almost charcoal-brown at the edges, carrying rosettes in rose, ivory and green so the dark band never looks flat. Ivory fringe at both ends and a dark selvage finish the perimeter. This is a palette that sits comfortably with warm woods, brass, worn leather and plaster walls, and it will do a great deal of decorating work on its own.

Woven in the Heriz District of Northwest Persia

Heriz is a cluster of weaving villages east of Tabriz, on the slopes below Mount Sabalan, and its reputation comes from two things the region cannot be separated from: mineral-rich water that sets the dyes, and a famously tough, springy highland wool that resists crushing for generations. Weavers there work from memory and from a cartoon held in the family rather than from a studio drawing, which is why no two Heriz rugs of the same design are ever quite identical. Village weaving in the district usually sits below 200 knots per square inch, and this rug follows that tradition of moderate knot count with heavy, honest handle, yet the drawing is finer than average: the curved petals, the thin ivory outlines and the tightly packed border rosettes take a steadier hand than the standard geometric Heriz requires. Handled in person, the rug is thick, heavy and completely flat, with a pile that has worn evenly rather than thinning in traffic lanes, and that combination of Heriz wool with near-workshop drawing is what puts this one above the run of decorative 9 foot by 12 foot Persian rugs from the same district.