5' x 7' Persian Tabriz Mahi Rug | Wool & Silk Herati Fish Design | Approx. 400 KPSI

A 2000's Tabriz woven in the Mahi idiom, the fish pattern that carried the name of the city into every serious rug collection in the West. The pile is wool with silk worked into the highlights, and at roughly 400 knots per square inch, 60 Raj by the Tabriz measure, the drawing stays crisp down to rosettes the size of a grain of rice. Hand the rug over and the surface flashes where the silk catches, then settles back to a matte cream. It is an easy piece to place among 5x7 Persian and Oriental rugs because the ivory ground keeps a small room open while the dense pattern forgives daily traffic. Pile is full and even corner to corner, the ivory fringe is original and untrimmed, and a certificate of authenticity ships with the rug.

Design and Motifs

The field is a continuous Herati lattice: small diamonds, a rosette at the center of each, and the pair of curved lanceolate leaves on either side that weavers read as two fish circling a pool, which is where the word Mahi comes from. Over that lattice sits a lobed medallion in three stages, an ivory inner cartouche inside a coral ring inside a scalloped outline, with a pendant reaching toward each end of the rug and quarter medallions turning the 4 corners. The main border runs a brown vine through alternating ivory and coral cartouches, each holding an 8 petal rosette flanked by small palmettes and feathery leaves, and that band is framed by narrow guard stripes of boteh and reciprocal floral meander, outlined in a fine pale blue zigzag that you only see from close up.

Colors in the Wool and Silk Pile

The ground is ivory, warm rather than stark, and the lattice drawn over it in soft coral turns the field a blushed salmon when you step back. The medallion, pendants and main border share that same coral, deepened at the edges, while brown carries the vine work and the medallion outlines. Sage and olive green fill the rosette centers, with small accents of madder red and apricot scattered through the border cartouches, and the whole pattern is defined by a dark indigo outline that keeps the small motifs from blurring together. These are quiet, dusty tones rather than saturated ones, which is typical of the best wool and silk Persian rugs, and the silk accents read as a change in light rather than a change in color.

Tabriz Origin and Weaving Quality

Tabriz sits in the northwest of Persia and has been the commercial and technical center of Persian weaving for centuries, the city that standardized the Raj system, counting knots per gereh of about 2.75 in across the width of the loom. At 40 Raj a Tabriz is commercial goods; 50 is fine; 60 Raj, roughly 400 knots per square inch, is where a workshop is working for collectors rather than for volume, and that is the grade of this piece. On a tight cotton foundation the weavers have clipped the pile low so none of the detail is lost, and the back shows an even, close grain with no abrash and no pulled rows. Mahi is the design Tabriz masters hand to their best small loom weavers precisely because it exposes any loss of accuracy, and here it holds true through every repeat.