10' x 13'2" Persian Tabriz Rug | Navy Blue Herati Mahi All-Over Field | Rust Diamond Medallion | Excellent Condition

This is a classic room-size Persian floor rug in the Tabriz tradition: a deep navy blue ground covered edge to edge in the Herati lattice, with a single rust-orange diamond medallion holding the center and heavy rust borders framing the whole field. The pile is 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, dense enough underfoot to sit flat without buckling and short enough to keep the drawing crisp. At 10' x 13'2" it covers a full living room or seats a 10 chair dining table with the chairs still on the rug, and it is one of the easiest pieces to place among our 10x13 Persian rugs. Condition is excellent, with full even pile and original hand-tied fringe, and the rug ships with our certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The field is a textbook Herati, also called mahi or fish pattern: a continuous diamond lattice, each compartment carrying a small rosette flanked by four curved lanceolate leaves, the pairs of leaves reading as the fish that give the pattern its name. Because it is drawn as a true all-over Herati design, the repeat runs under the furniture without a visual break, so a sofa or a table never cuts the composition in half. At the center sits a stepped diamond medallion outlined in an ivory and teal zigzag, filled with rust-orange and carrying a small 8 petal rosette with paired palmettes above and below. Two large stepped corner brackets in rust pull the same lattice outward to the 4 corners. The main border is a rust ground with alternating ivory cartouche panels, teal rosettes and reversing palmettes, set between narrow guard stripes of reciprocal sawtooth and a running vine, closed by a plain navy outer band.

Color Palette

Two colors do the structural work. The field is a deep navy blue that photographs almost indigo in raking light, and the medallion, corner brackets and main border are a warm rust-orange with a terracotta cast rather than a bright pumpkin. Inside the lattice the weavers worked in a secondary palette that keeps the field from going flat: cream and ivory for the leaf outlines and the smaller rosettes, a soft salmon peach that reads pink against the blue, a clear turquoise teal in the flower heads, a darker forest green in the border rosettes, and small touches of deep burgundy at the rosette centers. The ivory guard stripes separate rust from navy so the border reads as three distinct bands at a distance. Against pale oak, wide plank floors or a light stone, the navy anchors a room, while the rust and salmon give it warmth that cooler navy blue Persian rugs do not have. The last photograph shows the reverse, where the same colors appear knot by knot with no sign of fading from pile to base.

Origin and Weaving Quality

The design belongs to the workshop tradition of northwest Persia, where Persian Tabriz rugs set the standard for the Herati field: a cartoon followed exactly, straight borders, corners that resolve properly, and a medallion that lands dead center on a 13 foot length. That last point is harder than it sounds on a loom this wide, and it is the first thing to check on a room-size rug. The weave here is tight and even, with the 3/8" wool pile clipped low so the lattice stays legible and the knots packed firmly against a cotton foundation. Tabriz wool of this type is springy and takes a long polish from foot traffic rather than wearing bare, which is why these rugs are bought for the rooms that actually get used. Selvedges are intact, the ends are secured and the original fringe is hand-tied, so the rug is ready to lay down as it is.