11'6" x 16'6" Persian Tabriz Mahi Rug | Black Field, Rust Medallion | Wool & Silk, Never Used

This is a full palace piece: 11'6" x 16'6" of hand-knotted Tabriz Mahi work on a cotton foundation, woven in fine wool with silk drawn through the highlights so the medallion and spandrels catch light differently from the field. The black ground is covered edge to edge in the tiny fish repeat, and the drawing holds its rhythm across nearly 200 inches of length, which is the real test in a rug this large. It has never been on a floor. Pieces at this scale usually carry a freight surcharge elsewhere, but every one of our oversize Persian rugs ships free to all 50 states, and this rug arrives with a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials and knot count.

Design and Motifs

Mahi means fish, and the name comes from the herati unit repeated across the field: a small rosette inside a diamond, flanked by 4 curved leaves that read as fish circling the flower. Here that unit is drawn at a very small scale and repeated thousands of times, so the black ground behaves like patterned silk rather than a field of separate motifs. At the center sits a large scalloped medallion built from concentric rings of tiny rosettes, tightening down to a fine lattice core, with a pendant anchoring it at each end. The corner spandrels are cut in the same scalloped outline and carry the same herati repeat in a lighter ground, so the composition steps outward in tone rather than in drawing. The main border runs turtle palmettes and curling paisley vines between multiple narrow guard stripes, several of them filled with miniature boteh and running vine.

A Black Field Lifted by Rust, Camel and Green

The field is a true black, deep enough that the rosettes scattered across it read as points of light: ivory, apricot, soft orange, a little pale blue and pink, with small green leaf strokes holding the herati diamonds together. The medallion moves from rust and terracotta at its outer scallops through salmon and old gold into a pale sage and ivory center, and the silk highlights give that core a visible sheen when you walk around it. The spandrels are camel to warm beige, cooler and quieter than the medallion, which keeps the corners from competing with the middle. In the border the black returns as ground for cream palmettes, moss green foliage, wine red and touches of powder blue, while the guard stripes stack ivory, light blue and red in thin lines that frame the whole 16'6" length. It is a dark rug that photographs warm and lives warm.

Tabriz Weaving and the Mahi Tradition

Tabriz sits in northwest Persia and has been the commercial and technical center of Persian weaving for centuries, with the workshops there measuring fineness in Raj, the number of knots counted across a gereh of about 2.75 inches. At 60 Raj, roughly 400 knots per square inch, this rug belongs to the collector grade rather than the commercial grade; the Mahi repeat simply cannot be drawn this small at a looser count, and the scalloped outlines of the medallion would go ragged. The back shows an even, tight weave with crisp knot definition and straight sides, and the flat-woven ends finish into plain ivory cotton fringe. Weaving a Mahi of this size means a wide loom, several weavers working side by side from the same cartoon for a long stretch of time, and enough discipline to keep the field repeat from drifting. Compare it with other Persian Tabriz rugs and the control across this much surface is what stands out.