9'7" x 12'11" Persian Tabriz Rug | Navy Herati Mahi Field, Rust Border | Excellent Condition

This 9'7" x 12'11" Persian Tabriz is the classic workshop formula done properly: a deep navy field carrying an unbroken Herati lattice, a single small medallion holding the center, and a brick red border that frames the whole thing without crowding it. The pile is full 3/8" wool on a cotton foundation, with no low spots, no repairs and clean ivory fringe at both ends, and the back photograph shows a tight, even knot line from selvage to selvage. It drops naturally into the standard 12x15 room footprint that buyers of 10x13 Persian rugs are usually shopping for, under a dining table or over the main seating area of a large living room. Every rug we ship leaves Freeport with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials, knotting and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The field is a full all-over Herati design, the pattern weavers call mahi, or fish: a repeating diamond lattice with a rosette at each center and 4 curved lanceolate leaves turning around it like fish circling a pond. The repeat runs edge to edge in perfect register, which is the hardest part of drawing Herati on a 13 foot length. At the center sits a compact 8 petal rosette medallion in brick red, outlined in soft gold and filled with turquoise palmettes and ivory leaf forms, deliberately small so it reads as an accent rather than a competing centerpiece. Matching quarter medallions anchor the 4 corners of the field. The wide main border carries linked palmettes and rosettes on a red ground, flanked by narrow guard stripes of reciprocating floral heads and a barber-pole twist, closing on a navy outer edge that matches the field.

Color Palette

The ground is a true indigo navy, dark enough to read almost black in low light and cool blue under a lamp, which is exactly why collectors chase navy blue Persian rugs for rooms with heavy wood furniture. Against it the lattice is drawn in madder red and salmon, with the individual rosettes picked out in turquoise, teal green, cream ivory and a warm saffron gold, so the field sparkles with small spots of light rather than sitting flat. The borders shift to a clear brick red, warmer and brighter than the field reds, which lifts the frame away from the center. Close detail shows chocolate brown and deep aubergine in the medallion petals and small notes of pale sky blue in the border palmettes. There is gentle abrash in the navy across the upper third, the natural shading of hand-dyed wool, and the ivory fringe and navy selvage finish the edges cleanly.

Tabriz Origin and Weave

Tabriz sits in the northwest of Persia and has been the commercial and artistic hub of Persian weaving for centuries, the town where the Raj system of counting fineness across the width was formalized and where the Herati repeat became a house specialty. Tabriz workshops weave on a taut cotton warp with a tight double weft, beaten down hard, which is what keeps a lattice of this scale straight over almost 13 feet instead of letting it wander. That construction, combined with the firm local highland wool and a trim 3/8" pile, is why a Tabriz of this weight holds its drawing and takes decades of traffic under a dining table without flattening. The wool here still has its natural lanolin sheen, the knot count is visibly even across the back, and the piece reads as solid city workshop production rather than village work.