6'7" x 8'8" Persian Tabriz Rug | Wool & Silk Mahi Fish Design | Maroon & Ivory, Brand New

This is the Mahi Tabriz in its classic form: a deep maroon field carrying thousands of tiny diamond and rosette units, a scalloped ivory and camel medallion at the center, and a wide ivory border of turning floral vines. The pile is wool with silk, and the silk does exactly what it is there for, catching light along the medallion tracery and the fine outline work so the drawing shifts as you walk around it. At 1/4" the pile is cut low, which is how Tabriz weavers keep a pattern this small legible. It is brand new and has never been on a floor, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming the hand-knotted Persian origin shown on the reverse in the last photograph.

Design and Motifs

The field is drawn in the Herati repeat, known to weavers as Mahi, the fish pattern: a small rosette set inside a diamond, with four curved lanceolate leaves reading as fish turning around it. The unit repeats across the whole ground without a break, and the medallion, the two axial pendants and the 4 corner spandrels are simply cut out of that same continuous lattice, which is why the composition never feels assembled from parts. The medallion itself is built in three concentric layers, an outer scalloped ivory ring, a camel and gold inner cartouche, and a small blue rosette at the dead center. Each pendant is a miniature palmette shape outlined in ivory against the maroon. The main border alternates a leafy rosette with an upright palmette on an ivory ground, framed by narrow guard stripes of running vine, and the drawing stays true right through the corners rather than getting truncated, which is a mark of careful cartoon work.

Maroon, Ivory and the Colors in Between

The dominant color is maroon, a deep wine red that sits closer to burgundy than to brick, and it reads slightly darker where the wool lies against the nap and slightly warmer where the silk catches light. Against it, the Herati units are picked out in ivory, soft gold, olive and small points of pale blue and rust, so the field is quiet from across a room and full of tiny color events up close. The spandrels are the second color story: an olive to camel ground rather than the usual navy, which keeps the whole rug in a warm register. The main border is a clean ivory, the palest value in the rug, and it lifts the maroon considerably where the two meet. Guard stripes in brown and soft green separate the two fields, and the outer selvedge is finished in the same maroon as the ground. The fringe is bright white cotton at both ends.

Tabriz Weaving and Why This Size Works

Tabriz sits in the northwest of Persia and has been the country's most organized weaving city for centuries, working to the Raj system, where fineness is counted as knots per gereh across the width. Mahi is the pattern Tabriz workshops use to prove themselves, because a field of repeating fish units exposes any slack in the knotting immediately, and this one holds its rhythm from end to end with a cotton foundation drawn tight enough to keep the rug flat and square. The low clipped pile and the wool and silk blend are what allow that much detail in a piece of this scale. At 6'7" x 8'8" it is a true room-size piece for a seating area, a dining table for 4 to 6, or a large bedroom, and it belongs with the 6x9 Persian rugs most buyers are measuring for.