9'8" x 12'6" Persian Heriz Rug | Rust Field with Navy Stepped Medallion | Ivory Corner Spandrels

This is a full room size Persian Heriz, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation and finished at a substantial 3/8" pile that gives the surface real weight underfoot. The drawing is pure Heriz: a broad rust field carrying an angular stepped medallion in dark navy, ivory corner spandrels at all 4 corners, and a wide near black main border of rosettes and serrated leaves. At 9'8" x 12'6" it covers a standard 10x13 footprint, so it sits comfortably in the family of 10x13 Persian rugs that anchor a large seating group with furniture fully on the rug. The wool is dense, the colors are natural and unfaded, and the condition is excellent throughout with straight sides and original ends. A certificate of authenticity is included with every rug we ship.

Design and Motifs

The center holds an 8 petal rosette set inside a small blue cartouche, ringed by an ivory outlined star and then by the larger navy medallion with its hooked, stepped edges. Long serrated pendants run off the top and bottom of the medallion into the field, and squared hook brackets project left and right. Around them the field is packed with angular palmettes, blocky vine returns, little tree forms and comb shaped leaves, all drawn on the straight line grid that the Heriz weavers work from rather than the curved cartoon of a city workshop. The ivory spandrels repeat the same vocabulary in reverse, each one framing a stepped rust cartouche with a small paired flower head. The main border alternates large round rosettes with angular leaf clusters, and is fenced on both sides by narrow guard stripes of dotted rosettes, the sort of clean, confident layout that keeps this rug firmly in the family of classic geometric Persian rug designs.

A Rust Field Framed in Near Black and Ivory

The ground is a deep brick rust that shifts between terracotta and a softer madder rose depending on where the light falls, with gentle abrash banding across the width that tells you the wool was dyed in small lots. Against it the medallion and the wide main border read as a very dark navy that goes almost black in the low light of the detail photos, and that darkness is what makes the rust look as saturated as it does. Ivory does the lifting: it outlines the central rosette, fills the 4 corner spandrels, and flickers through the field as small hooks and leaf tips that keep the pattern legible from across a room. Cooler mid blue and sky blue appear in the flower heads and vine outlines, olive and khaki green run through the leaves and tendrils, and there are pale salmon and rose tones in the palmettes. The overall effect is warm and traditional rather than bright, a palette that settles easily next to walnut, oak, leather and cream upholstery.

Woven in the Heriz Villages 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: mineral rich water that hardens the local wool, and a drawing tradition built on straight lines, stepped corners and bold scale. Weavers there work from memory and from village patterns rather than a fully painted cartoon, which is why no two Heriz medallions are identical and why the small irregularities in this one are a mark of genuine village work. Knot counts in these villages usually sit under 200 knots per square inch, but that is the point: the coarser knot carries a thicker, tougher wool pile, and a well made Heriz of this size is the rug people put in the busiest room of the house and still hand down. This example is evenly woven from end to end, with a heavy handle, a flat lie and the kind of sturdy cotton foundation that keeps a 9'8" x 12'6" rug square on the floor for generations.