Antique Heriz Five Medallion Persian Runner Rug, Red Field, Early 20th Century

An antique Heriz runner from the villages of north-west Persia, hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation.

Five medallions run down a red field, alternating between a pale blue-grey star and a navy latch-hook form, each holding a small square of gold at its centre. Latch-hooks, rosettes and small geometric sprigs fill the ground between them in the direct Heriz manner, and the whole is held by a gold border carrying a floral meander in navy, red and pale blue.

The colour is what places it early. Light blue and yellow are used freely, through the medallions and along the border, and in Heriz weaving that generosity with pale blue and yellow belongs to the earlier pieces. As the century went on the palette moved toward deeper blues and used less yellow. There is no orange here, and nothing in the palette that reads as later than the 1930s.

It is symmetrically knotted on cotton warps and double-wefted, with one cream weft exposed on the back and a blue weft carried inside it, a trait of the Heriz district. The pile is wool, and the red carries a gentle drift in tone across the field.

Heriz has been the great weaving district of Persian Azerbaijan since the nineteenth century, known for rugs of unusual toughness and for a bold geometric drawing that its village weavers developed from the curvilinear designs of Tabriz nearby. Runners like this one were woven in the villages around the town and carry that drawing at its most direct.

At 300 by 88cm it is a hallway runner. Explore more Persian runners.