6'6" x 10' Persian Tabriz Rug | Ivory Herati Fish Field with Red Medallion | Semi Antique

This is the Tabriz formula done properly: a tight ivory field carrying thousands of small Herati elements, a brick red lobed medallion holding the center, and a navy surround that frames the whole drawing without shouting. At 6'6" x 10" the proportions land right in the most useful slot in the house, which is why 7 x 10 Persian rugs sell faster than almost anything else we import. The wool has that dry, slightly lustrous handle good Tabriz wool develops with age, the 3/8" pile is full and even from end to end, and the ivory cotton fringe is intact and hand-finished on both ends. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is a hand-knotted piece woven in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The field is drawn in the Herati pattern, known in the bazaar as mahi, the fish pattern: a diamond lattice of vines, each compartment enclosing a small rosette flanked by 4 lancet leaves that curve like fish around the flower. It runs edge to edge as a true all-over design, uninterrupted, with the ivory ground shaped into a large cusped reserve so the navy takes over at the 4 corners and along the outer edges of the field. The medallion is built in layers: a brick red lobed frame, then a navy stepped cross containing 4 camel gold cartouches of climbing flowers set around a tiny rose rosette at the exact center. Small navy pendant cartouches with pale blossoms anchor the top and bottom axis. The main border is a red ground of alternating navy and ivory palmette rosettes joined by serrated leaves, held by a reciprocal meander and several narrow guard stripes that keep the outline crisp.

Color Palette

Two colors carry the rug and a handful of accents do the detail work. The field ground is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than white, and it reads light enough to lift a dark floor. The medallion and the main border share a softened brick red that leans toward terracotta and rose in raking light, the kind of mellowed red that only comes from good madder-family dyeing settling down over time. Behind and around the ivory reserve sits a deep navy blue, almost blue black in the photographs, which gives the drawing its depth and makes the ivory look brighter than it actually is. Inside the medallion, 4 camel gold panels bring warmth to the center, and scattered through the Herati lattice are soft sage green leaves, dusty rose blossoms, pale sky blue highlights and touches of ochre. The overall impression is ivory and red, with navy doing the structural work, so the rug sits comfortably with both warm woods and cooler modern furniture.

Woven in Tabriz, Northwest Persia

Tabriz sits in the northwest of Persia and has been the country's most organized weaving city for centuries, the place where workshop discipline, cartoon-drawn designs and the Raj counting system all came together. Raj measures knots per gereh, roughly 2.75 in, across the width of the loom, and it is the reason Tabriz work is so predictable in quality: the weaver is working to a number, not an approximation. You can see that discipline on the back of this rug, shown against a tape measure in the last photograph, where the rows are even, the knots are small and regular, and the cotton foundation is tightly packed with no slack or drawn-in edges. The selvedges are original and snug, the ends are secured, and the pile has worn down uniformly rather than in patches, which tells you the rug was woven with consistent tension and has been used carefully. That combination of fine Herati drawing, a disciplined weave and a classic ivory and red palette is exactly what buyers mean when they ask for a real Persian Tabriz.