6'6" x 9'7" Persian Nain Rug | Wool & Silk Burgundy Medallion | Signed Workshop Piece

Most Nain weaving you see arrives in ivory and blue, which is exactly why this one stops people. The field here is a deep burgundy, and the whole ivory and sky blue vocabulary of Persian Nain rugs is drawn on top of it, so the flowers read like frost on wine. Hand-knotted in the 2000's in fine wool with silk worked into the outlines and highlights, it measures 6'6" x 9'7" and sits comfortably in the 7x10 Persian rugs range that suits a seating group or a 6 chair dining table. The pile is full, the ends are clean, and the condition is perfect. Every rug we sell ships with a certificate of authenticity documenting origin, materials and construction.

Design and Motifs

The drawing follows the classic Nain formula and executes it carefully. A large oval field fills the center of the rug, carrying a dense all over lattice of curling arabesque vines, small palmettes and open blossoms, with no repeat that reads as mechanical. At the heart sits a round medallion built from an 8 petal rosette, each petal outlined in navy and filled with pale blue, surrounded by a ring of scrolling ivory tendrils and a ruffled cloud band edge. The oval is framed by a wide ivory ground that carries its own large blossoms and leafy vines, then a main border of ivory running a continuous meander of rosettes and lotus palmettes, flanked by guard stripes in camel and light blue with small repeating flower heads. The corner detail in image 5 shows how disciplined the drawing is: the vine turns the corner cleanly, and the border repeat resolves instead of being cut off.

The Burgundy and Ivory Palette

The field is a true burgundy, closer to a dark wine or claret than to the tomato reds of village weaving, and it deepens where the pile lies against the light. Over it the flowers are drawn in warm ivory and cream, shaded with two distinct blues: a soft sky blue that fills the petals and a near black navy that does the outlining and gives every stem a crisp edge. Small touches of camel and olive brown appear in the leaves and in the guard stripes, warming the palette so the contrast never turns cold. The medallion and the surrounding field are mostly ivory and blue, which makes the burgundy read as a frame around the light rather than the other way around. Silk is used where it earns its keep, in the highlights and outlines, so those passages catch the light and shift tone as you walk around the rug.

Nain: The Town and the Weave

Nain sits on the desert edge in central Persia, east of Isfahan, and it came late to rug weaving. The town made fine wool cloth for generations, and when that trade fell away the same workshops turned their thread spinning and precision to knotting. That history explains the weave: very fine wool, a tight cotton foundation, short even pile and silk used as an accent rather than a whole cloth. The back shown against the ruler in image 6 gives you the honest measure of it, with small regular knots and clean color changes that only come from careful workshop weaving rather than village work. A rug drawn with this many curved lines in a 6'6" x 9'7" format needs that knot count to hold the flowing vine, and this one holds it from the medallion out to the last guard stripe.