5' x 11'2" Persian Nain Rug | Ivory Wool and Silk Twin Medallion | 400 KPSI, Never Used

This is an odd size in the best sense: 5' x 11'2" is longer and narrower than a standard 5x8 or 6x9, which makes it the rare piece that fits a long seating wall, a gallery landing or a narrow sitting room where nothing standard works. The field is ivory, the drawing is fine, and the pile is wool with silk worked into the outlines and highlights at roughly 400 knots per square inch. It has never been used, it dates to around 2000, and the wool still has its full original luster, visible in the low angle photograph where the pile catches the light. Like all Persian Nain rugs we sell, it ships with a certificate of authenticity recording origin, materials and knot count.

Design and Motifs

Because the format is so long, the weaver used 2 full medallions rather than 1, each a round rosette centered on a soft salmon core and ringed by cloud band lobes in blue and cream. Between them, at the exact waist of the rug, sits a small quatrefoil cartouche that acts as a hinge between the 2 halves. The ivory ground around the medallions is not left open: it carries a continuous all-over of flowering branches, small palmettes, 8 petal rosettes and slender boteh paisleys, each spray drawn separately and outlined in dark brown so the curves read cleanly against the light ground. Anchor rosettes appear in the 4 corners of each medallion panel, and pendant shields drop from the top and bottom of each medallion. The main border runs a classic turtle palmette and arabesque vine, framed by 2 pairs of narrow guard stripes and finished with a fine barber pole outer edge, the same border vocabulary you see on the corner and rolled edge photographs.

Ivory Ground, Sky Blue and Navy

Ivory is the main color and it is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than to white, which keeps the rug from looking stark next to oak or walnut. Everything else is layered on top in the traditional Nain palette: navy blue for the outlines, medallion frames and the darkest flower centers, and a clear light sky blue for the vine work, the small blossoms and the filler leaves. Beige and tan carry the border ground and the softer arabesques, while a muted salmon tone lights the medallion cores and the inner guard stripe. Touches of gray appear inside the rosettes and give the flowers a shaded, almost three dimensional look, and small notes of deep burgundy punctuate the border blossoms. The silk is used sparingly and deliberately, following the outlines and the palest flower petals, so the pattern shifts in brightness as you walk past it.

Nain and the Quality of the Weave

Nain sits on the edge of the central Persian desert, east of Isfahan, and its weaving industry is young by Persian standards: the town turned from fine wool cloth to rugs in the 1930s and immediately worked at a level most villages never reach. The house style is exactly what you see here, an ivory or light blue ground, curvilinear floral drawing borrowed from the Isfahan school, and silk used to outline the pattern. Fineness in Nain is counted in la, the number of plies in the pile yarn, and the fewer the plies the finer the weave, which is why collectors chase Persian Nain 6La and Habibian rugs above everything else the town produces. At approximately 400 knots per square inch this piece belongs to that upper tier, and the back photograph shows it plainly: tight, even rows on a cotton foundation, with the pattern legible from the reverse.