6'9" x 9'8" Persian Tabriz Mahi Rug | Wool & Silk Herati Fish Design | 400 KPSI

This is a 60 Raj Tabriz Mahi at the size most buyers actually want, a true 7x10 Persian rug measuring 6'9" x 9'8". The pile is wool with silk drawn through the outlines and the medallion, worked over a cotton foundation at roughly 400 knots per square inch, which is what allows the fish lattice to stay this small and this legible across the whole field. Handle the back and you can feel how tight and even the weave is, with no sponginess and no wandering rows. It has never been used, the pile stands full, the ends and sides are original and sound, and it ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming it as a hand-knotted piece made in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The field carries the Mahi, or fish, pattern: an endlessly repeating Herati lattice of small rosettes framed by four curved lanceolate leaves, the leaves being the fish that give the design its name. At this knot count the repeat is tiny, roughly a dozen units across the width, so the field reads almost like textile damask until you get close. Centered on it is a scalloped diamond medallion filled with its own miniature lattice, tipped top and bottom by slender cusped pendants, and anchored by a small dark core with a gold and rust palmette rosette. Four large spandrels in the same ivory lattice pull the corners in and shape the field into a soft oval. The main border alternates turtle palmettes with cusped floral cartouches, and there are 6 narrow guard stripes of running vine and reciprocal trefoil, each one drawn cleanly enough to hold its own line.

A Dark Field Read in Ivory, Rust and Brown

The ground is black, not navy, and that matters: it throws the ivory rosettes forward so the lattice sparkles instead of sinking. Each small fish unit is picked out in ivory, burnt rust, soft gold and a muted sage, with traces of pale blue in the flower centers, and the sheer density of those specks gives the field a warm brown cast from across the room that resolves into distinct colors underfoot. The medallion and spandrels shift to a cream and ivory ground so the drawing there reads bright, outlined in olive brown and dusty rose. In the borders the palette warms further, with terracotta, mustard gold, ivory and a pale lavender grey running against the near-black border ground. Silk highlights catch the light along the medallion outline and the pendants, and the color changes depending on where you stand.

Tabriz Weaving and the Raj Count

Tabriz sits in northwest Persia and has been the country's most organized weaving city for centuries, working on vertical looms with a hook-ended knife and grading its own output by Raj, the number of knots counted across one gereh of about 2.75 inches. 40 Raj is commercial goods and 50 Raj is fine; 60 Raj, as here, is around 400 knots per square inch and is where a Tabriz workshop starts producing collector-level pieces. Mahi is the design the city is best known for, and it is also the hardest to fake, because a coarse weave cannot hold the small fish repeat without the leaves blurring into the rosettes. Look at the close-up photographs of this rug and every leaf still has a point. Among fine Persian Tabriz rugs, that clarity is the single most reliable tell of a serious loom.