6'6" x 10'3" Indian Mahi Tabriz Rug | Wool & Silk Herati Fish Design | Brand New

A pom red field packed edge to edge with tiny fish motifs, a scalloped medallion floating in soft sage, and an ivory border drawn in fine line work: this 6'6" x 10'3" rug follows the Mahi Tabriz formula closely, and it was hand-knotted in India, which is where most of the world's good contemporary hand-knotted weaving is now done. The pile combines wool with silk, so the outlines of the medallion and the fish lattice lift and shine against the matte ground as you walk around the piece. It has never been on a floor, the pile stands full and upright, the selvedges are tight, the ivory fringe is clean, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity. As a formal Oriental rug it sits comfortably in the practical 7 x 10 size range, large enough to carry a seating group without swallowing a room.

Design and Motifs

The whole field is a Herati lattice, called Mahi, or fish, in the trade: a small diamond enclosing a rosette, with 4 curved lanceolate leaves turning around it like fish circling a pond. Here the repeat is drawn very small, which is the hard version of the pattern and the reason a Mahi is a fair test of a weaver. At the center sits a scalloped medallion with a sage green inner rosette ringed in ivory, a dusty rose second ring and an outer band of the same fish lattice worked in lighter tones. Slender pendant palmettes reach from the medallion toward each end, and the 4 corner spandrels repeat the lattice in the pale colorway, separated from the red ground by a fine ivory outline. The main border carries alternating shield cartouches and open palmettes joined by a continuous vine scroll, framed by rose and navy guard stripes and a narrow serrated inner stripe.

Color: Pom Red Ground with Sage, Ivory and Rust

The ground is a deep pom red with a wine cast rather than a bright fire red, and the tiny motifs scattered over it are picked out in ivory, tan, sage green, soft blue and dark brown, which keeps the field lively instead of flat. The medallion and spandrels shift to a pale greenish taupe with dusty rose shading, and the very center drops into a muted sage green, the coolest note in the rug. The main border is ivory, warmed by rust, terracotta and olive in the palmettes, with dark brown outlines giving each flower a clean edge. Rust and rose guard stripes carry the warmth out to a solid red binding at the very edge, and the fringe is natural ivory. In daylight the red reads rich and slightly dusky, under lamplight it deepens and the silk outlines glow.

Woven in India in the Tabriz Mahi Tradition

Indian workshops took up the Tabriz Mahi drawing decades ago and now weave it at a level that stands up to close inspection, which is exactly what this pattern demands: a small Herati repeat only stays legible if the knot count is high enough to draw a rosette and 4 leaves inside a diamond barely bigger than a fingernail. The back, shown folded in the photographs, is even and tight on a cotton foundation, with straight rows and no bulge or draw anywhere along the sides. The silk is used where it earns its keep, on the medallion outlines, the pendants and the lighter tracery, while the wool pile carries the traffic. That combination is what gives this rug its two-tone shimmer and why it will hold its drawing for decades of real use.