6'5" x 10' Persian Nain Rug | Wool and Silk Floral Medallion | Red Field, Perfect Condition

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 true red, and the whole cool palette of the town, light blue, navy, cream and beige, is drawn on top of it. The rug measures 6'5" x 10', it is hand-knotted with a wool and silk pile on a cotton foundation, and the silk is used where it earns its keep: in the highlight lines of the flowers, the medallion tracery and the vine stems, so those elements catch light and lift off the red ground as you walk past. The pile is full and even, the handle is supple, and the piece has never been laid in a home. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity that records origin, materials and size. If you want the background on how this town grades and builds its weaving, our guide to Persian Nain rugs is the place to start.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a star medallion built in tiers: a small red and blue rosette core, a ring of cream petals and tiny red teardrops, then a band of brown and cream blossoms, then the outer ring of light blue lobes filled with the interlocking scroll-and-key motif that Nain draughtsmen use instead of a plain outline. Above and below it sit matching pendants. From there the field runs as a continuous all over vine: curling serrated leaves, split palmettes, lotus blossoms and small buds, each flower outlined in navy and lit along one edge with a silk highlight. The 4 corners carry navy spandrels drawn with the same vocabulary at a smaller scale. The main border is a broad cream band of alternating palmettes and rosettes joined by a thin blue meander, flanked by light blue and navy guard stripes and a final outer minor border. Nothing in the drawing is repeated mechanically; the vine reverses and reflows around the medallion the way a good cartoon should.

A Red Field Under a Cool Blue Palette

The ground reads as a deep cherry red, clean and slightly blue in tone rather than orange or brick, and it stays consistent from end to end with no visible abrash. Against it the light blue does most of the drawing: it fills the medallion lobes, the leaf bodies and the spiral scrollwork, and it sits about halfway between sky and powder in strength. Navy, almost black in the spandrel grounds and in the outlines, gives the pattern its edges and stops the blue from floating. Cream and soft beige carry the border field and the petal interiors, with warm brown used for the rosette centers and small olive-green touches in the leaf tips. Fine burgundy accents repeat inside the cream border so the red field and the ivory frame talk to each other. On a dark wood or espresso floor the ivory border becomes the frame; on pale oak the red field is the anchor. It is a formal palette that works with navy, brass, camel leather and cream upholstery.

Nain Weaving and Quality

Nain sits on the edge of the central desert, west of Isfahan, and the town only turned to rugs in the 20th century when its fine wool cloth trade fell away. The weavers brought the precision of that cloth work with them, and within a generation Nain was rated beside Isfahan for drawing and finish. The traits are all present here: a short clipped pile that holds a crisp line, navy contour outlines around every motif, the scroll-and-key filler inside the medallion, and silk reserved for the highlight passages rather than sprayed across the whole design. The back shows small, regular, tightly packed knots on a cotton warp and weft, and the fringe is hand-tied from the warp itself rather than added after. At 6'5" x 10' this covers a seating group with the front legs of the furniture on the rug, or sits under a 6 seat dining table with room to pull the chairs back.