8'4" x 10'1" Mahi Tabriz Oriental Rug | Black Herati Field, Ivory Medallion | Wool and Silk, Never Used

This 8'4" x 10'1" hand-knotted rug is built on the Mahi Tabriz drawing, the tight fish-pattern lattice that separates a serious weaving from a decorative one, because the motif repeats thousands of times and every repeat has to land in the same place. The field here is black, the oval medallion is ivory, and the wool and silk pile has been clipped low so the silk catches light across the lattice as you walk past it. It is new and has never been on a floor, with even selvedges, straight sides and hand-tied cotton fringe at both ends. As a genuine hand-knotted Oriental rug, it ships with a certificate of authenticity listing size, materials, origin and construction.

Design and Motifs

Mahi means fish, and the name comes from the pair of curved lanceolate leaves that flank each small rosette inside the diamond lattice, reading like 2 fish circling a pond. That herati unit covers the entire field without a break, inside the medallion, across the black ground and out through the open corners. The center holds a scalloped oval medallion with a smaller 12 lobe rosette at its heart, finished top and bottom with pendant palmettes that point along the length of the rug. A second scalloped outline surrounds the medallion and is echoed in the 4 corner spandrels, so the field reads as a light frame around a dark pool. The border system runs to 7 bands: a wide ivory main border of rust palmettes, olive rosettes and connecting vinery, flanked by narrow reciprocal guard stripes in camel, blue and brick, and closed by a plain black outer edge.

A Black Field Read in Ivory, Camel and Rust

The ground is black, dense enough that the lattice over it reads almost as embroidery rather than pile. Against it the medallion and spandrels move through ivory, cream and a warm camel brown, with the silk accents lifting those tones another half step whenever the light shifts. Inside the lattice the small flowerheads are picked out in rust, brick red, olive green, soft sage and a pale sky blue, plus occasional white knots that give the black field its sparkle. The main border sits on a clean ivory ground that lightens the whole perimeter, while the guard stripes layer taupe, gold and blue into thin ribbons of color. Photographed in warm light the black ground can read as a deep coffee brown, and in cooler light it returns to true black with the rust and olive accents coming forward.

Woven in India in the Tabriz Mahi Tradition

This rug was made in India, where the best contemporary hand-knotted weaving in the world is now produced, and the workshops that take on the Mahi drawing are the ones with the knot count to carry it. The construction is straightforward and honest: a cotton foundation, a wool pile with silk worked into the medallion, spandrels and highlight motifs, and a weave dense enough that the pattern is fully legible from the back. The low clip is deliberate, since a Mahi lattice at full pile height turns muddy, and here every small fish and rosette holds its outline. At 8'4" x 10'1" it covers a standard seating group with the front legs of the sofa and chairs on the rug, and it belongs squarely in the 8x10 area rug range alongside the rest of our hand-knotted Oriental rugs.