13' x 20'5" Persian Tabriz Rug | Mahi Herati Wool & Silk | Palace Size

At 13' x 20'5" this is a true palace piece, one of the few genuinely large formats in our collection of oversize Persian rugs, and it carries the most demanding drawing a Tabriz workshop attempts at this scale: the Mahi Herati fish pattern, repeated tens of thousands of times without a break in rhythm from one end of the rug to the other. The pile is wool with silk worked through the medallion, the outlines and the border vine, knotted on a cotton foundation, and the silk catches the light exactly where the design needs to lift. The condition is perfect, with full even pile, tight selvedges and clean ivory cotton fringe as shown in the back photograph. Every rug ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The whole surface is drawn in the Mahi Herati vocabulary: a diamond lattice holding a rosette at each intersection, flanked by 4 lancet leaves curved like small fish, the motif that gives the pattern its name. A large ogival medallion floats at the center, built from 5 scalloped concentric rings that step from ivory through gold to a soft apricot, each ring filled with the same miniature Herati repeat at a smaller scale. Slim pendants rise and fall from the medallion at top and bottom, each one tipped with a stylized palmette finial. The deep field is contained within a broad shield-shaped reserve, with wide ivory and gold spandrels sweeping into the 4 corners. The main border runs a sage green ground with alternating palmettes and open rosettes linked by a black outlined arabesque vine, framed on both sides by paired guard stripes of running vine and tiny 8 petal flowerheads. Count the repeats along the 20'5" length and the discipline behind the piece becomes obvious.

A Neutral Palette of Charcoal, Ivory and Sage Green

The field reads as charcoal black at the outlines and warms to a dusty taupe brown across the open ground, because the lattice that fills it is worked in ivory, sand and pale gold so densely that the dark ground shows only in the gaps. The medallion is the lightest area on the rug: cream and old ivory at the innermost rosette, moving out through honey gold and a faded apricot. The border shifts the whole palette cooler with a soft sage green, almost celadon, carrying pale blue green leaves, cream palmettes and rust orange flower centers, with black reserved for the thin vine outlines that keep the drawing crisp. Pinpoints of navy and rust are scattered through the field lattice and read as texture rather than color from standing height. This is a quiet, low contrast rug in person, the sort of neutral ground that sits under mixed wood and upholstery without competing.

Tabriz Weaving and the Mahi Tradition

Tabriz sits in the northwest of Persia and has been the country's most organized weaving city for centuries, working to the Raj system where fineness is counted across the width of the rug rather than guessed at. Mahi Herati is the drawing Tabriz is known for above all others, and it is unforgiving: the lattice has to stay perfectly regular over the full 245" of length or the eye picks up the drift immediately. A palace format like this one occupies a wide horizontal loom and a team of weavers for years, with the silk laid in by hand at the outlines and medallion rings. Among Persian Tabriz rugs the combination of true palace size, wool and silk pile and an unbroken Mahi field is the top of the workshop range, and the back of this piece shows the even, tightly packed knotting that makes that possible.