8'2" x 11'5" Indian Tabriz Mahi Rug | Ivory Herati Fish Pattern | Wool with Silk, New

This is a brand new, never used hand-knotted rug in the Tabriz Mahi design, woven in India in wool with a touch of silk over a cotton foundation. At 8'2" x 11'5" it lands in the most useful of the 8x11 rug sizes, large enough to carry a full seating group or a dining table with all chairs pulled out, without overwhelming a standard room. The drawing is dense and disciplined: a small scalloped diamond medallion at center, tiny pendants above and below, and a field of miniature herati fish motifs that repeats across the entire ivory ground. The silk sits only where it does the most work, along the outlines of the medallion and the pendant stems, so the pattern catches light as you walk past it. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is genuinely hand-knotted, along with its size, materials and origin.

Design and Motifs

Mahi means fish, and the name comes from the herati unit repeated across the field: a small rosette inside a diamond, flanked by 4 curved lanceolate leaves that read as fish circling a pool. Here that unit is drawn at very small scale, which is the whole point of a Mahi, and it tiles edge to edge behind the medallion rather than stopping at it. The center medallion is a stepped diamond with a scalloped outline, filled with its own lattice of the same motif in a darker tone, and it floats inside a large lobed cartouche shape whose ivory outline traces the full width of the field. The 4 corner spandrels carry a denser version of the same drawing, each closed off with a small palmette. The main border is an ivory band of turtle palmettes and rosettes joined by a thin vine, framed on both sides by narrow guard stripes of running flowerheads, with a fine outer stripe holding the whole composition square.

A Quiet Ivory Palette with Olive, Rust and Navy

The dominant color is ivory, a soft warm cream rather than a bright white, and it carries the field, the border ground and the outlines of the medallion. Against that ground the herati units are picked out in rust terracotta, deep navy and a muted olive green, all at such small scale that from standing height they blend into a warm oatmeal shimmer and only separate into distinct colors when you look down close, as in the detail photograph. The center medallion and the spandrels read a full shade deeper, a taupe brown that gives the rug its visible structure across the room. The main border is grounded in olive grey with ivory palmettes and small rust and navy flowerheads, which keeps the edge from competing with the field. It is a neutral rug in practice, easy to place against oak, walnut or a painted floor, and forgiving of both cool greys and warm creams in the surrounding furniture.

Made in India: Weaving Quality and the Mahi Tradition

India is where most of the world's good contemporary hand-knotted work is now made, and a piece like this shows exactly why. The back photograph, measured against a ruler, shows small, even, tightly packed knots with no skipping and no wandering line, which is the only way a Mahi drawing this fine holds together over 11 feet of length. The wool is handspun and firm with a low, level clip that keeps the tiny motifs crisp, and the silk is used sparingly as highlight rather than as bulk. The selvedges are hand-finished and the cotton warps are knotted off into a full, even fringe at both ends. If you are weighing this against an antique piece, it is worth understanding how an Oriental rug is classified by origin and weave rather than by design name alone. This one is new, unwalked and ready for decades of daily use.