5'6" x 7'10" Persian Nain Habibian Rug | Signed Wool & Silk | Burgundy Field, Never Used

Most Persian Nain rugs arrive on an ivory ground, which is exactly why this one stops you: the field is a deep burgundy, and the usual Nain palette of cream, ice blue and navy is set against it instead of the other way around. The pile is wool with silk worked into the outlines and highlights, so the drawing lifts out of the ground whenever the light moves across it. A woven cartouche sits in the ivory end border, and the piece reached us catalogued as a Habibian weave, the workshop name that Nain collectors look for first. The rug has never been walked on, the fringes are untouched and the pile still stands at full height. It ships with our certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The center is a round layered medallion, built from a small navy and ivory rosette at the core, then a ring of 16 petal shapes, then an outer crown of cream and blue lobes with tiny finials pointing outward. Around it the field is filled with a continuous arabesque of slender vines, curled serrated leaves, palmettes and small 8 petal rosettes, drawn in the fine curvilinear style that only survives at a high knot count. The corner spandrels repeat the medallion in quarter form, each carrying a bold light blue palmette that gives the 4 corners weight. The main border is ivory, with an undulating black vine that loops around alternating rosettes and split leaves, framed by two narrow guard stripes of blue and cream lily heads. The back photo shows the knot nodes reading cleanly one by one, which is what allows the drawing to stay this precise at this scale.

A Burgundy Ground Under Ice Blue and Cream

The field is a true burgundy, closer to wine than to a bright Kashan red, and it stays even from one end to the other with only the natural sheen shift of hand-spun wool. Against it, the flowerheads are cream and soft beige with tan and warm brown centers, while the vines and leaf tips run through two distinct blues: a pale ice blue that carries the medallion and the spandrel palmettes, and a deeper navy that outlines the drawing and keeps it crisp. The border is a warm ivory that reads almost champagne in daylight, spotted with small burgundy blossoms that tie the frame back to the field. Silk sits in the highlights, so the ice blue and cream take on a faint gloss at an angle. In a room with cream upholstery and dark wood floors, as in the styled photo, the burgundy does the anchoring and the blues keep it from going heavy.

Nain: Fine Weaving on the Edge of the Desert

Nain sits in central Persia, east of Isfahan on the rim of the salt desert, and its weavers came to rugs late, turning from fine woolen cloth to knotting only in the 20th century. That textile background is why the town went straight to the top of the quality scale: the drawing follows the Isfahan curvilinear tradition, but the execution is measured in La, the number of plies in the weft yarn, with 9La ordinary, 6La fine and 4La reserved for master work. Pieces attributed to the Habibian atelier sit at the very top of that ladder, and our guide to Nain 6La and Habibian rugs explains what separates them from standard town weaving. This example carries the tight, low pile and dense handle of proper workshop production, with straight selvedges, flat lying corners and a back clean enough to read every line of the cartoon.