13' x 20' Persian Nain Rug | Ivory Wool & Silk Palace Size | Blue Floral Medallion

At 13' x 20' this is a genuine palace size floor, 260 square feet of hand-knotted wool and silk on a cotton foundation, and it reads as one continuous composition rather than a pattern stretched to fit. The ivory ground carries a single round medallion at center with an allover arabesque field running out to the corners, and the silk is used where it counts, in the outlines and highlights that catch the light as you walk past. Condition is perfect, the pile is even from end to end, and the handle is supple enough that the rug lies flat immediately. Every piece we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity confirming origin, materials and hand-knotted construction. Pieces of this footprint in a fine Nain weave are not commonly woven, and finding one in unworn ivory is rarer still.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a large round medallion built in concentric rings, a small rosette core surrounded by radiating petal bands, a blue cusped outer ring, and slender pendant finials reaching along the long axis. Around it the field is drawn as a classic allover arabesque: thin islimi vines spiral outward in mirrored pairs, tying together palmettes, open lotus heads, curled acanthus leaves and small multi-petal blossoms, with the vine scroll fine enough that no two quadrants feel mechanical. The 4 corners carry matching spandrels filled with the same vocabulary at reduced scale, so the composition closes cleanly at the edges. A wide main border of alternating palmettes and rosettes on a soft ivory ground runs the perimeter, flanked by narrow guard stripes of running vine and paired blue reciprocal bands. The drawing stays curvilinear throughout, which is the whole point of a Nain: every leaf tip and stem crossing is resolved, not approximated.

A Study in Ivory, Sky Blue and Soft Rose

The dominant note is ivory, a warm undyed cream that shifts toward soft camel where the light rakes across the pile, and that ground color is what makes the rug so easy to live with in a large room. Against it the palette is deliberately restrained: sky blue and powder blue carry the vine scrolls and the medallion rings, deep indigo navy outlines the palmettes and anchors the drawing so the pattern never floats, and quiet accents of soft rose pink, pale sage green, tan and a dark aubergine appear inside the individual flower heads. The silk highlights sit in the lighter blues and ivories, giving those lines a faint sheen that changes as you cross the room. The overall effect is neutral from a distance and surprisingly colorful up close, which is why an ivory Nain of this scale works with both antique furniture and a clean contemporary interior.

Nain Weaving and the Scale of This Piece

Nain sits in central Persia on the western edge of the great desert, a town that made its name in fine woolen cloth before it turned to knotting in the 1930s, and that textile background shows in the tight, disciplined weave and the habit of pairing wool pile with silk outlining. Weavers there work on a cotton foundation with very small knots, which is what allows the flowing curved line seen here, and the town's reputation now sits alongside Isfahan and Qum among the finest workshop centers in the country. You can read more in our guide to Persian Nain rugs. Weaving a piece 13 feet wide takes a loom and a team most workshops never assemble, and the knot count has to hold steady across years of work for the medallion to stay true, which is exactly why unworn oversize Persian rugs in this quality turn up so seldom. This one is sized for a great room, a formal dining room with the chairs pulled out, or a wide open plan floor that needs a single rug to define it.