Rugsville Heriz Serapi Rust Navy Carpet 8' x 10'

Heriz Serapi carpets defined the American taste for Persian rugs through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Bold geometric medallions, terracotta and indigo palettes, and a coarser, more graphic knot than the city workshops of central Persia. The Serapi sub-grouping refers to the older, finer, more drawing-led pieces that dealers in New York and London pulled apart from the broader Heriz output. The piece in front of you carries that lineage in a contemporary weaving.

The carpet was hand-knotted in India over roughly five and a half months by three weavers on a vertical loom. Hand-spun wool on a cotton warp and weft, tied row by row by feel and memory. The dyestuffs are vegetable, prepared from madder root, indigo, walnut hull, and weld, with the rust ground built up through deep madder over a light gold base. The indigo for the navy was matured in a fermenting vat over two weeks before the wool was lowered.

The composition

A rust-red field carries a stepped central medallion in indigo navy and ivory, with corner spandrels echoing the medallion in reverse colour. The Heriz drawing is angular rather than curvilinear; geometry that reads from across the room, with each motif holding its own. The rust will lighten over the years into a softer terracotta and the indigos will deepen, the natural arc of vegetable colour. The ivory will warm into bone.

What you are buying

Period Heriz Serapi carpets in 8' x 10' scale with strong colour and clean condition appear at Christie's and Sotheby's in the range of $25,000 to $70,000. This is a new piece in hand-spun wool on a cotton foundation, in the Persian asymmetric knot, with vegetable-dyed colour, in the same drawing tradition. The carpet appreciates with use rather than depreciating; that property is the difference between a furnishing and an asset.

The piece in a room

8' x 10' (244 x 305 cm) is the canonical Heriz scale and reads as a primary anchor in a living room or under a six to eight seat dining table. Rust and navy pairs with warm wood floors, with linen and leather upholstery, and with cream or oat plaster walls. Direct sunlight is a friend to a vegetable-dyed Heriz; UV restores the dye depth that interior light slowly washes out.

Conservation

Rotate the carpet a half turn each spring and autumn so light and traffic age the surface evenly. Vacuum weekly, suction only, beater bar disengaged. Blot any spill with a clean cotton cloth, working from the edge inward, and never rub. Engage a wool-trained conservator for a hand wash every five years. With this care, the rug runs eighty years and outlives its first owners.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted hand-spun wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 244 x 305 cm (8' x 10')
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Hands: 3 weavers, 5.5 months
• Pile: 10 mm
• Dye: vegetable (madder, indigo, walnut, weld)
• Origin: India

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