9'4" x 12'6" Persian Heriz Rug | Rust Field, Navy Medallion | Finely Drawn Geometric Floral

Most Heriz rugs are drawn with a heavy hand, which is part of their charm. This one is not. At 9'4" x 12'6" it fills a room the way large Persian rugs are meant to, yet the drawing inside the medallion and across the field is unusually tight and detailed for village work, with small leaves, blossoms and curling vine tips that most Heriz weavers would have simplified away. The wool pile is dense and lustrous on a cotton foundation, the pile is even from end to end, and the back photo shows clean, regular knot rows with no repairs or reweaves in view. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a hand-knotted rug woven in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic village formula built with far more detail than usual. A large navy medallion sits dead center, stepped and lobed at the edges, with an 8 petal rosette at its heart ringed by a rust circle. Four anchor pendants push out top and bottom, each ending in a small serrated palmette. The ivory spandrels at the 4 corners are packed with curling split leaves, tiny cypress forms and rosettes, and their inner edges are outlined in a crisp black line that makes the shape read from across the room. Between medallion and corners the rust field carries an all over lattice of angular palmettes, serrated leaves and stemmed blossoms, drawn small and repeated with real discipline. The main border runs a navy ground with alternating rosette cartouches and vine scroll, flanked by a pale green and ivory guard stripe and a sawtooth minor band. Buyers who want this angular, architectural look will find more of it among our geometric Persian rugs.

A Rust Field Against Deep Navy and Ivory

The field is a warm rust, closer to terracotta than to true red, and it shifts slightly with the light as good wool does, going brick in the center and a little softer toward the ends. Against it the medallion and outer border read as a deep navy that falls almost to black in the shadows, which is what gives the rug its weight and keeps the rust from looking flat. Ivory does the separating work: the corner spandrels, the thin outlines around each palmette and the pale guard stripes that frame the main border. Scattered through the field and the border cartouches are sage and bottle greens, soft blue tones in the small rosettes, and occasional rose pink highlights that show most clearly on the back of the weave. It is a warm, saturated palette rather than a washed one, which places it easily with walnut and mahogany furniture, dark leather, and wide plank oak floors. See the full range of rust Persian rugs for comparison.

Heriz Weaving and Why This One Stands Out

Heriz is a group of villages east of Tabriz in northwest Persia, spread out below Mount Sabalan. The water there is mineral rich, and local sheep grow a wool that is famously tough and slightly coarse, which is exactly why Heriz rugs survive generations of foot traffic while finer city pieces wear thin. Weavers work from memory rather than a full cartoon, which is what produces the straight lines, stepped corners and confident angular drawing that define the type. Village Heriz weaving usually sits under 200 knots per square inch, so the knot count visible on the back of this piece, with its close, even rows and clearly articulated small motifs, puts it at the upper end of what the region produces and explains how the weaver was able to draw the vine work and rosettes at this scale. The result is a rug with the durability Heriz is bought for and a level of detail closer to the workshop tradition of nearby Tabriz.