9'9" x 13'4" Persian Herati Rug | Navy Blue All Over Mahi Field | Semi-Antique, Excellent

This is a semi-antique Persian rug built on one idea carried out with complete discipline: a navy blue field covered edge to edge in the Herati pattern, framed by a brick red floral border. At 9'9" x 13'4" it sits in the classic 10x13 Persian rugs bracket, the size most American living rooms and dining rooms are actually drawn around. The pile is a full 3/8" of hand-spun wool on a cotton foundation, hand-knotted row by row, with no thin spots, no repairs and no color run. The reverse side photograph shows the grid of knots and the flat, tight back that comes from a weaver who kept the beat-down consistent for the length of the rug. Every rug we sell ships with our certificate of authenticity confirming it is hand-knotted in Persia.

Design and Motifs

The field carries the Herati, known in Persia as mahi or the fish pattern, one of the oldest repeating designs in Persian weaving. A small diamond holding a central rosette is set inside a lattice, and each diamond is flanked by 4 curved sickle leaves, the shapes that gave the pattern its fish nickname. Here the repeat is drawn small and counted tightly, so the whole 9'9" x 13'4" surface reads as one continuous textile rather than a series of panels, which is exactly what an all over Persian rug design is supposed to do: it works from any direction and never fights your furniture layout. The framing is a full 5 band system. A narrow zigzag stripe closes the field, then an ivory vine guard, then the wide red main border with its alternating rosettes and trefoil palmettes, a second ivory floral guard, and finally a plain navy outer band. The corners resolve cleanly, the pattern turning without a break, which tells you the weaver was following a proper drawn plan and not improvising at the ends.

Color

The ground is a dark indigo navy blue that goes almost aubergine where the light hits the pile at an angle, and it is this darkness that makes the small motifs pop. Against it the lattice is drawn in a muted rose and dusty brick, the rosette centers in soft salmon pink and clear ivory, with scattered touches of pale sea green and soft teal that give the field its cool sparkle at close range. The main border shifts to a warm brick red with a gentle abrash, a natural tonal variation from the dye lot that moves in soft bands along the length and is a hallmark of hand-dyed wool. Ivory guard stripes separate every band, keeping the red and navy from running together, and the outer navy edge grounds the whole piece. From across a room the rug reads as deep blue with a red frame; standing on it you see rose, cream and green.

Origin and Weave

The Herati field with a floral red border is one of the great shared traditions of Persia, woven for generations across the northwest and the Khorasan region by weaving families who learned the repeat by heart and needed no cartoon for the field itself. This example is hand-knotted in Persia on a cotton warp and weft with a hand-spun wool pile, the standard town-loom construction that produces a rug heavy enough to lie dead flat and tough enough to live under a dining table for decades. The weave is firm and regular, the knot count high enough to resolve the sickle leaves and the tiny rosette centers without muddying them, and the selvages are original and intact. Semi-antique Persian rugs like this one have already had the factory stiffness walked out of them: the wool has bloomed, the colors have settled into one another, and what you get now is a piece that looks as settled on day one as a new rug does after 10 years.