6'7" x 10' Persian Nain Rug | Black Field, Ivory Medallion | Wool & Silk, Never Used

Most Persian Nain rugs are woven on an ivory or pale blue ground, which is exactly what makes this one worth stopping for: the field here is near black, and every ivory flower and silk-outlined vine stands off it the way white chalk stands off a blackboard. It is hand-knotted in wool with silk used to outline the drawing, on a cotton foundation, and the pile is kept to a low 3/8 inch so that nothing in the design blurs. This piece has never been on a floor, the ivory fringe and the selvages are untouched, and it ships with a certificate of authenticity. At 6'7" x 10" wide by 10 feet long it falls into the most usable band of 7 x 10 Persian rug sizes, large enough to carry a full seating group and still leave the border visible.

Design and Motifs

The center holds a round ivory medallion built out from a small blue rosette core, ringed by radiating petal bands and finished with slender pendants at the top and bottom. Four matching ivory spandrels close the corners, leaving a dark open field between them that is filled with a continuous lattice of scrolling vines, split palmettes, lotus heads and small rosettes, every element outlined so the curve of each stem reads cleanly. The main border is a wide ivory band of alternating palmettes and turning vinework, and it is framed on both sides by narrow blue guard stripes with a running flower and leaf meander. Note how the drawing is balanced rather than mirrored exactly: the field flowers shift slightly from one quadrant to the next, which is the signature of a hand-drawn cartoon rather than a mechanical repeat.

A Black Field With Ivory and Cool Blue Detail

The field reads as a deep, dense black with a faint charcoal cast where the light catches the wool, and it works as a stage rather than as a color of its own. Against it sit two families of tone. The first is ivory, running from a warm cream in the border ground and fringe to a cooler chalk white in the medallion petals and the larger field blossoms. The second is blue, and it does most of the work in the details: soft sky blue in the guard stripes and petal tips, a deeper slate blue in the vine outlines and rosette centers, and small notes of teal in the border palmettes. Warm camel and light brown appear in the stems and in the shading of several flower heads, which keeps the palette from turning cold. The silk highlights sit slightly higher in sheen than the wool, so the outlining catches light as you walk past and the pattern shifts subtly with the angle.

Nain: The Weaving Town and the Quality of the Weave

Nain is a desert town in central Persia, east of Isfahan, long known for weaving fine wool cloth before it turned to rug production in the 20th century. That textile background shows in the way Nain weavers work: tight cotton warps, a very short clipped pile, and Isfahan-derived curvilinear drawing that only makes sense at a high knot count. Silk outlining is the town's calling card, used to trace the vines and petals so the pattern keeps its edge even after the pile is shorn low. The back of this rug, visible in the third photograph, shows the knot nodes running in even, regular rows with no drift in the pattern and a straight, well-secured selvage, which is what you look for in a workshop piece rather than a village one. Handled properly, a Nain woven to this standard holds its drawing for generations.