5' x 8' Persian Nain Rug | Burgundy Field, Wool and Silk | Woven Signature Cartouche, Never Used

Most Nain weaving leaves the loom on an ivory or pale blue ground, which is exactly why this one stops you. The field here is a deep burgundy, and the usual Nain palette of cream, tan and two blues is laid over it instead of under it. It is hand-knotted on a cotton foundation in wool with silk drawing the outlines, measures 5' x 8', and the end border carries a woven cartouche, the weaver's own mark rather than a design element. The rug has never been on a floor: the pile stands full height, the ends and sides are original and intact, and the back is clean and even from selvage to selvage. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity. If you want the background on the town and its weaving conventions, our complete guide to Persian Nain rugs covers it in detail.

Design and Motifs

A round medallion sits dead center, built in concentric rings: a small blue and ivory rosette at the core, a ring of 24 burgundy and tan teardrops around it, then a band of ivory scrollwork, then an 8 lobed outer collar finished with cloud band tips. Four ivory pendants run off it on the long and short axes. The burgundy field around the medallion is filled with a continuous arabesque of thin vines carrying palmettes, split leaves, lotus heads and small 5 petal blossoms, all mirrored across both axes so the drawing reads the same from either end. Ivory spandrels close off the 4 corners with denser floral work outlined in a wine red. The main border is a broad ivory band of turtle palmettes linked by a serpentine vine, flanked on both sides by tan minor borders of lily heads and by fine blue and navy barber pole guard stripes. The signature cartouche breaks the tan minor border at one end, just above the fringe.

A Burgundy Field Against Ivory and Two Blues

The ground is a true burgundy, a deep wine red with no orange in it, and it darkens toward plum where the pile lies away from the light. Against it the design works in two separate blues: a soft powder blue that does most of the leaf and vine work, and a near black navy reserved for outlines, flower centers and the guard stripes. Between them sit warm creams, a chalky ivory, a mushroom beige and a light tan that reads almost pink in the medallion teardrops. Small brown stems and occasional pale peach buds keep the floral work from going flat. The silk shows itself in the outlines, catching light on the vines and the medallion rings while the wool around them stays matte, so the pattern shifts slightly as you walk past it. The ivory border and ivory fringe frame the whole thing and lift the burgundy rather than competing with it.

Nain, Central Persia, and the Weave

Nain sits on the edge of the central Persian desert, east of Isfahan, and for centuries it was a wool town making fine cloth rather than rugs. When that trade fell away in the 1930s the weavers turned to carpets and borrowed the Isfahan vocabulary: curved line, flowing vine, precise repeat. They took it seriously enough that Nain became one of the few names collectors mention in the same breath as Isfahan and Qum. The weave depends on drawing, and drawing only works at a tight knot count, which is why Nain workshops keep the pile clipped low and run silk through the outlines to hold a crisp edge. You can see that here in the back, where the knots sit small and regular, and in the field detail, where a vine can turn a full curve without stepping. Rugs at this level also gain from the silk used in Persian weaving, which is stronger than wool at the same thickness and lets the weaver draw a finer line than wool alone allows.