8' x 11'8" Wool and Silk Tabriz Mahi Rug | Black Herati Fish Field | Brand New, Never Used

This is a modern hand-knotted piece in the Tabriz Mahi idiom, woven in India on a cotton foundation with a wool pile lifted by silk highlights, and it measures 8' x 11'8", one of the most usable proportions in our 8 x 11 rug range. The pile is dense enough that the rug sits heavy and flat on the floor, and the silk catches light along the outlines of the medallion and the little fish motifs so the surface shifts tone as you walk around it. It has never been used: no traffic lanes, no sun fade, full pile height, and clean hand-tied fringe at both ends. As with every Oriental rug we sell, it ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it is genuinely hand-knotted.

Design and Motifs

Mahi means fish, and the whole field is built from the herati unit: a small diamond lattice, a rosette at each intersection, and 4 curved lancet leaves turned outward around it so they read like fish circling a pond. The repeat here is tiny and perfectly regular, which is the hardest part of this design to draw well at scale. At the center sits a cusped ivory medallion filled with its own miniature herati grid and a floral core, finished with a narrow outline and a slender pendant at each end, plus a pair of small ivory cartouches floating out to the sides. The 4 corner spandrels answer the medallion with the same lattice work on a lighter ground. Around all of it runs a broad ivory main border of palmettes, rosettes and curling vine, framed by a stack of narrow guard stripes carrying rosette chains and reciprocal sawtooth edging, with a black outer selvage closing the drawing.

Black Ground with Ivory, Olive and Rust

The field is a deep true black, not a navy reading as black, and against it the herati work is picked out in salmon rose, brick red, soft olive green, buttery gold and clean white, with a scatter of pale blue-grey blossoms that act like sparks across the darkness. The medallion and spandrels move to ivory and warm cream, shaded with light brown and khaki so the lattice inside them stays legible rather than flat. The main border is the palest element, an open ivory ground with deep burgundy rosettes and mushroom-brown vinework, while the guard stripes carry gold, dove grey and a warm camel tone that bridges the black field and the ivory frame. Silk highlights sit mainly on the outlines and the smaller floral heads, so the rug reads dark and formal from across the room and unexpectedly colorful once you stand over it.

Woven in India to Fine Mahi Standards

India is where most of the world's best contemporary hand-knotted weaving is now done, and the Mahi pattern is the benchmark test for a workshop there: the lattice is unforgiving, and any drift in the knot count shows up immediately as a wobble in the diamonds. This one holds its line from selvage to selvage. Turn the corner over and the back shows a fine, even, tightly packed knot grid with the pattern fully legible from behind, the sign of a good loom, disciplined weavers and a properly tensioned cotton foundation. The wool is springy and takes the silk highlights cleanly, and the dense beat-down means the pile will hold up under a dining table or a coffee table for decades rather than crushing into a shine.