6'7" x 8'2" Indian Mahi Tabriz Rug | Wool and Silk | Black and Brown

A hand-knotted rug measuring 6'7" x 8'2", woven in India in wool with a touch of silk. At a glance it reads dark: a scalloped black centre panel sitting inside a wide brown field, both of them filled with the same small lattice, and a black outer border carrying large leaves and palmettes. The ivory diamond at the middle and the ivory pendants above and below it are the only places where the pattern lightens, and they are what the eye goes to first.

Design

This is the Mahi Tabriz drawing, the fish pattern, built from a herati lattice that repeats across the whole rectangular field without a break. Each cell of the lattice holds a small rosette flanked by four curved leaves, and the leaves are what the name refers to. A scalloped, many-lobed black cartouche is laid over the centre, outlined in a thin ivory line, and inside it sits an ivory diamond medallion with a rose-brown floral centre, a rosette at its heart and feathered leaves running out to the points. Matching ivory pendants finish the medallion at top and bottom, and quarter versions of the same cartouche turn up in the four corners of the brown field. The main border is black, with alternating palmettes and long serrated leaves, framed by a slate-grey guard stripe of small florals on each side.

Colour

The ground of the centre panel is a true black, dense enough that the lattice on it registers as scattered points of rust, ivory and dull green rather than as a drawn line. Around it the field turns a warm mid brown, closer to taupe where the light runs across the pile, and the same lattice there is worked in rust and dark brown over the lighter ground. The medallion is a muted rose-brown with slate blue and sage green in the leafwork. Rust is the accent that ties the two grounds together, repeated in the border palmettes against black, with ivory keeping the corners and pendants legible.

Making

Knotted by hand in India, with a pile of wool carrying a touch of silk, used in the medallion and the leaf detail where it picks up light against the matte wool around it. The back, visible where the corner is turned in the photographs, shows the small, even knotting the Mahi pattern needs to hold its scale. The ends finish in plain ivory fringe and the sides in black selvedge. The rug is new and in perfect condition, with full pile throughout, and it sits among the other hand-knotted rugs here at the darker end of the traditional range.