5'9" x 8'2" Persian Nain Rug | Red Field, Ivory Floral Border | Wool & Silk, Never Used

Nain almost never weaves a red ground, which is the first thing a dealer notices about this 5'9" x 8'2" piece. The town built its name on ivory and pale blue, so a deep red field carrying the same icy blue drawing reads as a special order rather than a standard production run. This is a true Persian Nain rug, hand-knotted in wool with silk outlining on a cotton foundation, and it has never been on a floor: the pile stands at a full 3/8", the ends are tight, and the selvedges are untouched. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity stating origin, materials and measurements.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a many-petaled star medallion built from layered cream lotus leaves radiating out from a small blue rosette, with a paler halo of split leaves floating just beyond it. From there the field runs as a continuous vine scroll: curling acanthus leaves, small Shah Abbasi palmettes, buds and cypress-like sprays that all bend along the same rhythm rather than repeating as stamped blocks. The 4 corner spandrels are drawn in cream and pick the medallion's leaf shapes up again at quarter scale, which is the mark of a properly resolved cartoon. A wide ivory main border carries alternating rosettes and palmettes linked by a thin vine, flanked by light blue guard stripes and a narrow outer meander. The close-up shows how fine the outlining is: single-knot navy contours hold every leaf edge crisp against the red.

A Deep Red Field With Cream and Blue Drawing

The field is a saturated cool red, closer to a claret than a tomato, and it deepens or lightens as the pile turns to the light. Against it sits the Nain palette in full: soft undyed cream in the medallion and spandrels, sky and cornflower light blue through the leaves, and deep navy used only as outline and shading so the pattern never goes muddy. Beige and gray-green appear in the smaller leaves and vine stems, adding a quiet middle tone between the red and the cream so the contrast stays elegant rather than loud. The ivory border is the calm frame that lets the red field read as the main event, and the silk in the pile catches light on the medallion petals and the border rosettes, giving them a faint sheen the wool areas do not have.

Nain Weaving and the Quality of This Piece

Nain sits on the edge of the central desert of Persia, southeast of Isfahan, and only turned to rug weaving in the 20th century when its fine wool cloth trade fell away. Those weavers brought a tailor's discipline with them, which is why Nain is judged on precision of line rather than on bold color. The workmanship here is town workshop level: a very short, evenly clipped pile, a tight cotton warp and weft, and silk reserved for the outlines so the curved vines hold their shape at small scale. The back photograph shows the knot rows running dead straight with no bowing, the sign of a well-tensioned loom and a weaver who did not rush. At 5'9" x 8'2" it is a genuine room size that works under a seating group or a table without being oversized, and in this condition it will look the same in 30 years.