9'7" x 13' Persian Herati Rug | All-Over Mahi Fish Design | Dark Indigo Field, Excellent Condition

This is a room-size Persian rug drawn entirely in the Herati pattern, with no medallion and no open ground to interrupt it: a dark indigo field carrying a continuous lattice of rosettes, lanceolate leaves and small palmettes from selvage to selvage, framed by a broad dark salmon main border. It measures 9'7" x 13', is hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile, and is in excellent, never used condition, with full pile, straight sides and clean original fringes as shown in the corner and reverse photographs. Pieces in this classic all-over Herati layout are among the most usable Persian rugs made, and this one sits squarely in the sought-after 10x13 Persian rug footprint. It ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted Persian rug.

Design and Motifs

Herati is the pattern collectors also call mahi, the fish pattern, and it is built from one repeating unit: a small rosette set inside a diamond, with 4 curved leaves turned outward at the corners so they read like fish circling the flower. Here that unit repeats across the entire field in a tightly registered diagonal grid, with 8 petal rosettes and stepped star medallions alternating through the lattice so the eye keeps finding secondary structure inside what first looks like a single texture. The drawing is village-firm rather than curvilinear: straight diagonals, crisp outlines and a slightly angular hand that gives the repeat real backbone, which is why this kind of geometric Persian design works so well under furniture. The main border carries shield-shaped cartouches on a salmon ground, each holding a small rosette and flanked by dark palmettes, and is contained by 2 narrow guard stripes of running vine and a fine reciprocal edge, with the outer selvage finished in solid indigo.

Color Palette: Dark Indigo and Dark Salmon

The field is a deep dark indigo, close to midnight in low light and clearly blue where daylight hits it, and it functions as a dark ground rather than a color you notice first. Over it the lattice is drawn in dark salmon, the same tone as the main border, with rosette centers picked out in coral, ivory, soft gold and small hits of teal and sage green, so the field reads as a warm rose haze at standing distance and resolves into individual flowers up close. The border reverses the balance: a wide dark salmon ground with navy, ivory and gold devices, which pulls the warm tone to the perimeter and keeps the rug from going flat. Ivory appears only in the guard stripes, the cartouche fills and the small floral highlights, and that restraint is what keeps the contrast clean. The overall effect is a dark, warm, red-and-blue floor that hides everyday traffic and sits comfortably against wood, leather, walnut and cream walls.

Persian Origin and Weaving Quality

The Herati repeat is the common inheritance of the western and central Persian weaving belt, worked for generations in the towns and villages that supplied the great market cities, and it is the pattern a weaver is trusted with only once the grid can be held true over 13 feet without drifting. On this piece the diagonals stay honest from end to end and the border turns all 4 corners cleanly, which is the first thing to check on an all-over rug of this size and the thing that separates a workshop-standard weave from a casual one. The wool has the slightly glossy, springy handle of good highland fleece, knotted at a firm density on a cotton foundation and clipped to a 3/8" pile that shows the small motifs without blurring them. The reverse, visible in the final photograph, shows an even, well-beaten back with legible knot rows and original overcast selvages, and the rug lies flat with no curl.