6'7" x 10'3" Wool & Silk Oriental Rug | Mahi Tabriz Herati Fish Design | Never Used, Made in India

This 6'7" x 10'3" piece is a contemporary hand-knotted Oriental rug woven in India in the Mahi Tabriz idiom, with a wool pile carrying silk highlights on a cotton foundation. It has never been on a floor: the pile stands straight, the fringe is untouched, and the selvedges are still crisp, as the close photographs show. The drawing is the demanding one, a miniature Herati lattice repeated thousands of times across the field with no room for drift, and the weavers held the line right through the spandrels and into the corners. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity that records the size, materials, weave and origin. At just under 7 x 10 it is a true room-size format, and if you are comparing formats our 7 x 10 rugs collection shows how the proportion behaves in a real room.

Design and Motifs

The field is a full Herati, also called Mahi or fish: a diamond lattice with a small rosette at the center of each compartment and 4 curved lanceolate leaves turning around it, the leaves being the fish that give the pattern its name. Anchoring it is a lobed rust medallion built in concentric rings, an ivory rosette at its core, a soft grey-green ring around that, then a band of dark outlined petals, the whole thing finished with a scalloped ivory edge. A pendant palmette drops from the head and foot of the medallion, each one outlined in near black and filled with the same tiny lattice. The 4 corner spandrels shift the ground from ivory to a warm brown-rust so the medallion floats clear, and their scalloped inner edges echo the medallion outline. The main border runs a sage ground with alternating cartouche rosettes, palmettes and curling black vine, flanked by a camel guard stripe of rosette meander and several narrow reciprocal stripes that keep the frame tight.

A Palette of Ivory, Rust and Sage

The ground reads ivory from a distance and blush-salmon up close, because the lattice is drawn in soft brown, dusty rose and olive over a cream base, so the whole field glows rather than sits flat. The medallion is a brick rust with a faint plum undertone, deep enough to hold the center without turning the room red. Around it the spandrels move into a toasted brown and cinnamon that bridges the field and the border. The main border is the surprise: a pale sage green, muted and slightly greyed, carrying ivory cartouches, olive leaves, pale blue florets and small crimson buds, with a near black vine drawn over the top. A camel-gold guard stripe warms the transition, and tiny points of cream, pale blue and green appear all through the field where the silk catches light. It is a quiet, drawing-room palette that works with wood tones, brass and cream upholstery rather than fighting them.

Woven in India to Mahi Standards

India is where most of the world's good contemporary hand-knotted work is now made, and this rug is a clear example of why. The Mahi drawing punishes a loose weave: if the knot count drops, the fish leaves blur and the lattice wanders, and none of that happens here. The back photograph shows a fine, even, tightly packed grid on a cotton foundation, with the pattern legible from the reverse, and the wool takes the silk highlights with a low sheen instead of a glassy shine. The pile has been shorn close so the small motifs stay sharp, and the hand-tied fringe and flat selvedges are the work of an experienced finisher. If you are weighing this against an older village or workshop piece, our guide on the difference between Persian and Oriental rugs is the honest place to start.