13'3" x 19' Oversize Persian Bijar Rug | Tabriz Mahi Herati Fish Design | Fine Wool, Perfect Condition

This is a true palace piece: 13'3" x 19' of hand-knotted wool carrying the Mahi, or fish, design across an ivory and blue field that never repeats itself carelessly once. The drawing is fine for a rug of this scale, with thousands of small Herati rosettes marching in perfect register from one end to the other and a round sunburst medallion holding the center. Rugs of this footprint are usually coarse, because the loom time alone is punishing; this one was woven with a village discipline and a workshop cartoon. It is in perfect condition with full, even pile, straight sides and clean ivory fringe, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity. If you are shopping oversize Persian rugs for a great room, a library or a hotel lobby, this is the scale and the seriousness those rooms ask for.

Design and Motifs

The field is pure Mahi: the Herati lattice, a diamond of vines enclosing a rosette with four curved leaves flanking it, the leaves that give the pattern its fish name. It runs edge to edge as a true all-over design, with the round medallion laid over the top rather than interrupting it. That medallion is built in rings: a small ivory 8 petal rosette at the dead center, a scalloped ivory cartouche around it, then a rust arabesque ring that throws out curling tendrils, then a crown of blue and ivory spear points radiating outward like a sunburst. Slender pendant finials in navy and ivory drop from the top and bottom. Large rust and blue spandrels fill the 4 corners with scrolling vine and palmette work, and the main border sits on an olive brown to old gold ground with turtle palmettes, curled paisley leaves and diamond medallions, framed on both sides by blue and ivory guard stripes and a final navy selvedge. The corners resolve cleanly, which on a rug this long is the mark of a weaver following a proper cartoon.

Ivory, Blue, Rust and Olive Brown

Color is what carries this rug. The ground reads ivory to soft cream, and every Herati rosette sits in it in a layered blue: mid sky blue for the open petals, deep navy for the outlines and the small enclosing diamonds, so the field shifts between light and dark as you cross the room. Rust orange appears in tiny sparks through the lattice and then gathers into the medallion ring and the corner spandrels, where it turns to a warm terracotta. The main border is a deep olive brown with an antique gold cast, and against it the palmettes flare in pink, sky blue, ivory and bottle green. Those pinks and greens are small but they are everywhere, and they keep the palette from going severe. The close-up photographs show the wool taking light differently on each face of the pile, giving the blues a slight sheen and the ivory a soft glow. The back, visible in the reverse shots, carries the same clarity with a navy end finish, which tells you the dyes were saturated all the way through.

Woven in Persia in the Bijar Tradition

Bijar in Persian Kurdistan earned the title iron rug of Persia honestly: the weavers beat each row down with a heavy metal comb, packing the wool so tightly that the finished rug is dense, heavy and close to indestructible. That technique is what lets a piece this large stay flat and square under real furniture for generations. The Mahi drawing itself belongs to the Tabriz repertoire, and the two traditions meet often, with the Bijar loom supplying the structure and the Tabriz cartoon supplying the fine curved line and the disciplined Herati repeat you see here. Anyone weighing one Kurdish weaving group against another will find the differences set out in our guide to Persian Bijar rugs and in our comparison of Bijar, Bijar Zanjan, Bijar Tekab and Bijar Bukan. Woven in the 2000's on a cotton foundation with a 100% wool pile, this one has the handle of a rug built to be walked on for the next hundred years.