5' x 6'4" Persian Tabriz Mahi Rug | Black Herati Fish Field | Wool & Silk Highlights | Excellent Condition

This 5' x 6'4" Tabriz is the Mahi drawing done at close to its best: a black herati field so finely spaced that the little fish leaves read clearly even at arm's length, held inside a scalloped medallion and four deep corner spandrels. It is hand-knotted on a cotton foundation in wool with silk used for the outlines and highlights, which is why the medallion lobes and the curling cloudband edges catch the light differently than the ground around them. At 60 by 76 inches it is one of those small Persian rugs that behaves like a much larger piece, because the pattern is drawn at full scale rather than shrunk down. The pile is even, the ends and sides are sound, and the rug ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

Mahi means fish, and the name comes from the herati unit repeated across this field: a small rosette inside a diamond, flanked by 4 curved lanceolate leaves that older weavers read as fish circling a pool. Here the repeat is tiny and perfectly regular, marching corner to corner across the black ground without a break in rhythm. The center carries a layered medallion, an ivory floral core inside a scalloped copper cartouche, with a pendant finial above and below ending in a palmette. The spandrels mirror the medallion in gold with the same herati filling, and a feathered scalloped outline separates them from the field. The main border runs alternating rosette palmettes and lobed cartouches on black, framed by several narrow guard stripes of reciprocal trefoils and running vine. Nothing in the drawing is improvised; every quarter of the rug answers the other three.

A Black Field Lit by Copper, Gold and Ivory

The ground is a true black, slightly warmed by the brown and olive tones woven into the herati leaves, so it never goes flat the way a dyed-black modern rug can. Against it the herati rosettes read as small sparks of ivory and cream, with pinpricks of brick red, soft blue and mustard scattered through the repeat. The spandrels shift to a warm antique gold that fades toward buttery cream at the outer corners, and the medallion moves from copper and terracotta through sage green into a pale ivory center. The borders pick the same palette back up on black, with sage, ivory and a dusty rose running through the guard stripes. For buyers building a room around black Persian rugs, this is the useful kind of black: dark enough to anchor pale floors and furniture, warm enough to sit beside wood and brass.

Tabriz Weaving and Quality

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 the count of knots across a gereh of roughly 2.75 inches tells you exactly how fine a piece is. Mahi is the city's signature workshop design, and it is unforgiving: the repeat is so small that a loose weave turns the fish leaves into mush. On this rug they stay crisp, the medallion outlines hold a smooth curve rather than a stepped one, and the back shows a tight, flat, even knotting with the leather-bound edge and ruler in the photographs offered for scale. That combination of fine wool, silk accents and disciplined drawing is what separates a workshop Tabriz from a village piece.