9'10" x 13'1" Wool & Silk Tabriz Mahi Design Rug | Rust Herati Field | Made in India, Unused

This is a large, finely drawn Mahi design rug hand-knotted in India from wool with silk highlights, measuring 9'10" x 13'1" and never placed in a home. The weave is tight and even, the pile is low and lustrous, and the silk catches light along the medallion outlines and the vine work in the field. Pieces at this scale and this level of drawing are the reason buyers shopping 10x13 rugs keep coming back to the Mahi pattern: it fills a big floor without shouting. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming that it is genuinely hand-knotted, along with its materials, measurements 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 leaves that read like fish circling a pond. Here that unit is drawn very small and repeated edge to edge in a strict lattice, which is exactly what separates a good Mahi from an ordinary one. At the center sits a lobed diamond medallion on a black ground, filled with an olive and camel cartouche of palmettes and curling leaves around an 8 petal rosette, finished with slender pendants at the top and bottom and a pair of small black anchor medallions floating on the long axis. Large scalloped spandrels close off the 4 corners, their outlines traced in ivory so the shape stays legible from across the room. The main border carries big serrated palmettes and acanthus scrolls on black, framed by a sage guard stripe of small flowering sprigs and a fine reciprocal sawtooth ribbon at the outer edge, ending in a plain rust kilim and ivory fringe.

A Rust Field Framed in Black and Olive

The field is rust, warm and slightly terracotta, and it reads darker or lighter depending on which way the pile is brushed. Against it the herati lattice is picked out in ivory, olive brown, sage green, muted denim blue and small points of deep burgundy, so at arm's length you see dozens of colors and from standing height you see one rich russet tone. The medallion and both anchor pendants sit on near black grounds, which pushes them forward and gives the composition its backbone, and the same black returns in the wide main border so the rug is visually framed on all 4 sides. Olive brown and antique gold carry the palmettes, with ivory outlining used sparingly to keep the drawing crisp. The sage gray guard stripes are the quiet surprise here, cooling the palette just enough that the rust never turns heavy. Silk in the pile shows up as a directional sheen across the medallion and the border scrollwork.

Woven in India to a Classic Standard

This rug was made in India, where most of the world's best contemporary hand-knotted weaving now happens. The workshops there took on the classic city patterns decades ago and now execute the fine herati lattice with a consistency and a clarity of line that make a piece like this possible at a sane price. The foundation is cotton, the knotting is close enough to hold the tiny fish motifs without blurring, and the low clipped pile keeps every element sharp, as you can see on the folded back in the detail photograph. Buyers comparing this to a city weave should understand the distinction between a Persian rug and a broader Oriental rug before they decide, because on drawing, wool quality and finish this one holds its own. It has never been used, and at 9'10" x 13'1" it is ready for a room that needs a full anchor.