5'2" x 8'2" Persian Nain Rug | Signed Habibian 6La Wool & Silk | Approx. 500+ KPSI, Never Used

This is a piece you buy once. A signed, never used Persian Nain rug in 6La quality, hand-knotted in fine wool with silk detailing at roughly 500+ knots per square inch, so the drawing stays crisp down to the smallest bud. The composition is unusual for a rug this size: a deep red oval field floating inside a cream ground, with a round ivory medallion at the center and a wide camel border carrying the floral vine all the way around. The pile is low and dense, the silk catches the light where the vines turn, and the ends and sides are as clean as the day it left the loom. It ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center is a round ivory medallion built on an 8 point star rosette, ringed by a chain of small circular blossoms and finished with a scalloped edge that reads almost like lace against the red. Above and below it the field runs to two shield shaped pendants, and from there the scrolling arabesque takes over: thin curling vines, split palmettes, lotus heads and serrated leaves distributed evenly across the oval without a single lazy repeat. The surrounding cream ground is worked with the same vocabulary at a smaller scale, which is what makes the red oval appear to float rather than sit inside a frame. The main camel border is a continuous floral meander of rosettes, tulip forms and paired leaves, held between narrow guard stripes of blue and ivory, with a woven cartouche set into one end (image 5) and a plain blue selvedge closing the perimeter.

Color Palette

The field is a deep ruby red, warm rather than orange, and it holds its depth evenly from end to end. Against it sits cream and ivory in the medallion and the vine work, plus a soft camel beige that carries the main border and the ground around the oval. The blues do the real work here: a clear sky blue in the smaller blossoms and the outer selvedge, and a near black navy used as an outline color that sharpens every flower head and keeps the palette from going soft. Dusty pink and a muted rose appear in the border rosettes, warm brown edges the larger leaves, and small notes of teal green sit in the stems. The silk highlights read as a pale shimmer in the leaves and vine tips, brighter than the wool beside them depending on which way you walk around the rug.

Nain Origin and Weaving Quality

Nain sits in central Persia on the edge of the desert, east of Isfahan, and its weavers took the Isfahan drawing tradition and pushed it toward finer yarn and cooler color. Quality there is measured in La, the number of plies in the warp yarn: 9La is the everyday grade, while 6La and Habibian pieces are the collector end of the town's output. Habibian is the name that matters most in Nain, the workshop whose cartouche buyers actively hunt for, and it appears woven into the border of this rug. Built on a cotton foundation with a tight, level back (image 6 shows the knot density against a ruler), the weave supports the kind of curved line and fine outlining you can see in the medallion detail. At approximately 500+ knots per square inch in a 5'2" x 8'2" format, this is workshop weaving at full strength, unused and ready for another lifetime of service.