9'6" x 12'8" Persian Tabriz Rug | All-Over Herati Mahi Design | Semi-Antique, Excellent Condition

This is a semi-antique Persian Tabriz in the classic Herati drawing, woven on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" wool pile that still stands full and even across the whole field. At 9'6" x 12'8" it sits squarely in the 10x13 Persian rugs group, the size that covers a real room and lets a sofa and chairs sit entirely on wool. The handle is firm, the selvages are intact and the ends are straight with clean ivory fringe, which you can see in the back-edge photograph. Condition is excellent, with no repairs, no stains and no thin spots. Every rug we ship travels with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials, size and hand-knotted construction.

Design and Motifs

The field carries the Herati pattern, known in the bazaar as mahi, the fish design: a repeating diamond lattice with a small rosette at each center and 4 curved lanceolate leaves turning around it like fish circling a pool. Between the diamonds sit stepped squares, tiny palmettes and hooked sprigs, all outlined in ivory and brick so the lattice reads clearly instead of blurring. Because it is an all-over design with no medallion, furniture can be placed anywhere without burying the focal point. The main border answers the field with a wandering vine on salmon, alternating ivory rosette clusters with pointed lozenge cartouches at the 4 corners, flanked by teal guard stripes of small meandering flowerheads and a narrow reciprocal band at the inner edge.

Dark Indigo Field, Salmon Border

The ground is a deep indigo that leans faintly aubergine where the light rakes across the pile, and that darkness is what makes the drawing glow. Against it the weaver worked dark salmon and coral, a soft camel tan, chalky ivory, two values of teal from petrol to light sky, and small touches of brick red and dark green in the rosette centers. The wide main border reverses the balance: a warm dark salmon ground, almost tomato under direct light, with navy vinework and ivory blossoms laid over it. A gentle abrash runs through the field, the honest variation of small dye lots, visible as soft horizontal banding in the overhead photographs. The overall effect is a warm, slightly dusty palette rather than a bright primary red and blue.

Tabriz Weaving and Quality

Tabriz sits in the northwest of Persia, a bazaar city with the longest continuous commercial weaving record in the country, and the mahi Herati is one of its signature patterns, repeated by its workshops for generations. Tabriz weavers count fineness in Raj, knots per gereh across the width, and the tradition runs from sturdy room-size production weaves up to the 60 and 70 Raj collector pieces. This rug belongs to the honest middle of that tradition: a well drawn, tightly packed wool pile on a cotton warp and weft, heavy enough to lie flat without a pad shifting under it and dense enough to hold the small lattice detail cleanly. The wool is good local fleece with a quiet sheen, the kind that burnishes rather than dulls as a rug is walked on for decades.