8'2" x 11'6" Persian Nain Rug | Ivory Field, Blue Floral Medallion | Wool & Silk, Excellent Condition

Nain is the quiet end of fine Persian weaving: no loud color, no heavy field, just drawing. This Persian Nain rug from the 2000's runs an ivory ground the full 8'2" x 11'6", with a single blue medallion holding the center and a slim camel border framing everything. The pile is a wool and silk blend on a cotton foundation, so the vines and outlines catch light differently from the flat ivory around them and the pattern seems to shift as you walk past it. It sits in the useful range for a sofa-and-chairs grouping without reading as a heavy piece, and it arrives in excellent condition with a certificate of authenticity from our own import records in Freeport, NY. If you are shopping the wider 8x11 Persian rugs group, this one is on the longer side of it at 11'6".

Design and Motifs

The layout is the classic Nain formula, drawn with real discipline. A lobed blue toranj medallion sits dead center, and inside it an ivory cartouche encloses a small 8 petal rosette on a brick red ground. Slim pendants extend above and below the medallion into the open field, where islimi arabesque vines and Shah Abbasi palmettes spiral outward in ivory, camel and soft blue, thin enough that the ground stays airy rather than crowded. Blue cloudband scrollwork echoes the medallion shape at both ends of the field, and the 4 corners carry matching spandrels so the eye reads the symmetry instantly. The border system is layered: a camel main band of connected palmettes and leaf forms, flanked by light blue guard stripes and fine barber pole stripes, then an outer ivory stripe of small floral heads. Look closely at the corner photo and the resolution of the drawing shows, with curled leaf tips and vine junctions rendered cleanly rather than blocked in, which is only possible on a tightly knotted, low pile weave like this one.

The Ivory and Blue Palette in Detail

The field is a warm ivory, closer to unbleached cream than to white, with a very slight oatmeal cast where the wool has taken on a little age. Against it, the medallion is a clear mid azure blue, brighter and more open than the navy used for outlining, and that contrast between the two blues is what gives the center its depth. Navy does the structural work, edging every vine, palmette and spandrel, while a pale sky blue fills the interior of the guard stripes and many of the smaller blossoms, reading almost silver where the silk blend catches light. Camel and tan carry the main border and a good share of the field leaves, warming the whole palette so the blues never turn cold. Small quantities of brick red appear in the medallion cartouche, in scattered field rosettes and in the odd flower head, plus a few dots of olive green and cocoa brown for depth. The overall effect is a light, neutral-leaning rug that works with white walls and pale upholstery, which is exactly how it is photographed in the room shot. It also belongs comfortably alongside our other ivory and beige Persian rugs.

Nain: The Town and the Weave

Nain sits on the edge of the central desert east of Isfahan, and its rug industry is young by Persian standards, dating to the mid 20th century when the town's fine wool cloth trade declined and its weavers moved to the loom. They brought textile-grade precision with them, which is why Nain drawing looks so controlled: curved line, thin vine, tight registration between field and border. Fineness here is described in La, the number of threads twisted into each knot, with 9La being the standard market grade and the collector pieces dropping to 6La and the work of the best ateliers, as covered in our guide to Nain 6La and Habibian rugs. This piece is a wool and silk blend pile on a cotton foundation, clipped low so the pattern stays legible, and the reverse shown in the fold photo is even and tightly packed with no loose or coarse passages. Handled properly, a Nain of this construction holds its drawing for generations, which is why it remains one of the most collected weaving towns in Persia.