7'3" x 10' Persian Nain Rug | Signed Habibian Cartouche | Wool & Silk All-Over Floral, Never Used

You can identify a good Persian Nain rug from across a room, and this one announces itself immediately: an ivory wool ground, blue vine work drawn in a continuous curve, and silk outlining every leaf and petal so the pattern keeps its edge instead of blurring into the field. Woven in the 2000's and never put on a floor, the pile still stands full and even, the ivory has no traffic shading, and the ends and sides are original and tight. One end border carries a woven signature cartouche, the mark of a named workshop rather than an anonymous commercial run. At 7'3" x 10" it belongs in the most usable of all formats, so if you are shopping 7x10 Persian rugs this is the fine end of that shelf. A certificate of authenticity ships with the rug.

Design and Motifs

The field is an all-over floral system rather than a big medallion layout. A small round rosette sits dead center, ringed by 4 curling split-leaf arabesques that form a quatrefoil frame, and from there the vine network runs out to the corners in perfect mirror symmetry across both axes. Palmettes, lotus blossoms, serrated saz leaves and tiny 8 petal rosettes hang off the scrolling stems, each one outlined in silk so the drawing reads as line work, not as blocks of color. The main border repeats a linked palmette and vine on a camel ground, flanked by blue guard stripes of alternating rosettes and small floral heads, with 2 further minor stripes tightening the frame. At one end of the inner camel band sits the woven signature cartouche.

Ivory, Blue and a Touch of Burgundy

The ground is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than to stark white, which keeps the rug from looking cold under daylight. The blues do the real work and they are layered: near black navy for the stem outlines and the deepest leaves, a clear mid blue for the larger palmettes, and a pale sky blue used almost like a highlighter along the arabesques. Small notes of teal and soft grey-green appear inside the flower heads. Burgundy is used sparingly, a few deep wine dots and petal centers scattered through the field, just enough to warm the palette. The camel main border is the one solid stretch of color and it pulls the whole scheme together. Where the silk sits, the light shifts as you walk around the rug.

Nain, Central Persia, and the Habibian Standard

Nain sits in central Persia on the western edge of the great salt desert, a short run from Isfahan. The town wove fine wool cloth until the trade faded, then turned its weavers to rugs in the 20th century, borrowing Isfahan's curvilinear drawing and adding the habit that now defines the town: a cotton foundation, a short wool pile, and silk used to outline the motifs. Fineness in Nain is graded by the La count of the warp-wrapping, and the best pieces come out of a handful of named ateliers. Habibian is the name collectors ask for first, and a signed border is what separates a workshop rug like this from the general market.