Heriz vs Tabriz: Two Persian Classics Compared

By Storied Rugs7 min read

Cream Victorian dining room at dusk, a rust and navy Tabriz rug under a long oak table and wooden chairs, brass chandelier and marble fireplace

Heriz and Tabriz are the two names people know from northwest Persia, and they are often confused because the towns sit less than fifty miles apart. On the floor they could not be more different. A Heriz is bold, geometric and made to be lived on. A Tabriz is fine, curving and made to be looked at. The quickest test is the lines: if they step, it is a Heriz; if they curve, it is probably a Tabriz.

Where they come from

Tabriz is a city, one of the oldest carpet centers in the world and the capital of East Azerbaijan province. Its workshops wove for the Safavid court in the 1500s, and much later for export markets.^[1] Weaving there is organized around drawn designs and master weavers, working in fine wool and sometimes silk.

Heriz is a district of villages in the mountains east of Tabriz. The rugs are woven in homes rather than workshops, on heavier looms, with coarser wool from local sheep. The usual story is that village weavers copied the curved medallion designs of Tabriz from memory and straightened every curve into an angle as they went.^[2] Tribal, village and city rugs explains why a rug drawn from memory looks so different from one woven to a plan.

Overhead view of a rust red Gorevan rug with a stepped medallion and ivory corners on pine floorboards between a leather sofa and armchairs — A Gorevan, woven in the Heriz district and seen from above. The medallion and corners are built from straight lines and steps, worked out at the loom rather than drawn in advance.

How to tell them apart in thirty seconds

Do not rely on the type of knot. Heriz rugs are tied with the symmetric knot on a cotton foundation.^[3] So are the Tabriz rugs woven since the mid 1800s.^[4] What separates them on the back is how fine the knots are, and on the front how the lines are drawn.

How to identify a Tabriz rug

Curves. Vines bend, flowers have rounded petals and leaves, and the medallion has soft, lobed edges.
A planned layout. Most have a central medallion with matching corner pieces, or a floral pattern that covers the whole field.^[5] The four corners mirror each other, and the border keeps the same width all the way around.
More colors. Red and cream are common, but you also see navy, taupe, sage, gold and dusty rose, often in the same rug.
A fine weave. Turn it over. The knots are small and tight, and the back shows the pattern almost as crisply as the front.
A short pile. The wool is clipped low, so the fine detail stays sharp.

Our Tabriz guide goes further into the designs, sizes and colors.

How to identify a Heriz rug

Straight lines. Leaves are diamonds, vines are staircases, and the medallion has points.
One big medallion. It is large and angular, usually with ivory corners around it.
A coarse knot. You can usually count the knots on the back without a magnifier.
Coarse wool. It feels springy and a little rough underfoot, and the rug is heavy.
A narrow palette. Heriz rugs live on brick red, navy and ivory, with touches of green and gold.

Some finer Tabriz rugs use silk to pick out details. Silk is not only a Tabriz material, though. Heriz weavers also made silk rugs from time to time, under the influence of the Tabriz trade.^[3] One silk rug sold as a Tabriz turned out on appraisal to be a Heriz.^[6] The vintage Tabriz rugs we sell are wool pile throughout, so the difference you feel is the weave, not the fiber.

Deep red Tabriz rug with a curving floral medallion and cream corners in front of a cream bouclé sofa in a pale modern living room — A Tabriz, 7 feet 7 inches by 10 feet 11 inches, in a similar red, navy and cream. Everything the Gorevan steps, this one curves.

Is a Tabriz better quality than a Heriz?

Not automatically. A Tabriz is finer, but finer is not the same as better, and quality in a vintage rug comes down to wool, dyes, even knotting and condition. Tabriz has woven carpets of widely varying quality since the mid 1800s, so the city name alone does not promise a fine rug.^[4] Heriz rugs, for their part, are known as stout and serviceable.^[3] Asking which Persian rug is the best has the same answer: judge the rug in front of you, not the name on the label. What makes a vintage rug worth keeping goes through the checks.

Which one wears better

Heriz. The heavy wool and coarse knot are why so many Heriz rugs from the 1970s still look full after fifty years of use. They were made for busy rooms, and they shrug off chairs, dogs and children. Put a Heriz in a hallway, a dining room or under a family sofa and it will still be there for the next family.

Red and ivory Heriz rug with a stepped medallion and angular corners under a pine farmhouse table and green Windsor chairs in a brick kitchen — A Heriz, 8 feet 6 inches by 10 feet 6 inches, under a farmhouse kitchen table. Its corners and medallion are drawn in steps, and its heavy wool and coarse knot take chairs, children and dogs every day.

A Tabriz is not fragile, but it is finer. Its finer wool shows wear sooner under a dining chair that is dragged out twenty times a day. It is the better choice for a living room where people walk but do not scrape, a bedroom or a study.

Which one suits which room

A Heriz is a statement. The large angular medallion reads from across the room, and the strong red field sets the palette for everything on top of it. It works with dark wood, leather and plain sofas. If the rest of the room is quiet, a Heriz gives it a center.

A Tabriz is a background. The floral designs are dense enough that the eye does not settle on any one motif, and the softer colors let furniture and art take the lead. It suits rooms that already have pattern, and rooms in cream, gray and pale wood. If you worry that either will look old-fashioned, are Persian rugs out of style shows how both work in modern rooms.

What to look for when buying vintage

With a vintage Heriz, check the ivory areas. They are the first to show foot traffic, and a good piece still has full pile in the ivory corners around the medallion. Slight unevenness in the drawing is normal, and it is part of why village Heriz rugs are collected.

With a vintage Tabriz, check the ends and edges, which are the first parts of any rug to wear.^[7] A tidy repair at the ends is a good sign of an owner who cared for the rug. Look for colors that have softened evenly rather than in patches.

Price, and why a fine Tabriz costs more

A finely knotted Tabriz took longer to weave than a Heriz of the same size, and new, that makes it the more expensive rug. Every knot is tied by hand, so more knots per square inch means more weeks at the loom. Appraisers count the knots on the back as one way to value a Tabriz, and on an antique one about 360 to the square inch is good quality.^[7] In the vintage market the order often flips, because price follows condition and demand as much as weaving time. On our site, room-size Heriz rugs run from about $2,000 to $2,850, and a Tabriz of the same size usually costs a few hundred dollars less. What determines the cost of a rug explains the rest. What raises the value of a Heriz in particular, from age to intact borders, is in our Heriz guide.

Either way, a large 1970s rug in good condition is one of the best values in Persian rugs. Both are hand-knotted wool on cotton foundations, both were washed and restored before we listed them, and both will outlast most machine-made rugs by decades.

See our Heriz rugs or see our Tabriz rugs, and compare two of the same size side by side. For more on each, read the story of Heriz for the village side, and Persian and Turkish rugs: how to tell them apart for the broader tells.

From the collection