Nain Rugs: Fine Drawing, Cream Grounds and Blue

By Storied Rugs7 min read

A cream Nain rug with a dusty blue medallion and blue and red corners lying on dark oak boards beside a low bed, seen from a doorway

Nain rugs are finely drawn Persian rugs from Nain, a small town in central Persia, woven in the same formal style as the city rugs of nearby Isfahan. You can usually spot one by its pale cream background, a round medallion at the center and thin, curving vines in soft blue. Most of the ones we sell are room size, with a few small mats and a runner, and all of them are about fifty years old.

A cream Nain rug with a round navy medallion and gray-blue vines under a linen sofa and two cane chairs on dark oak, seen from above — A Nain, 9 feet 7 inches by 12 feet 10 inches. A round, many-pointed medallion sits on a cream background, with fine vines around it in charcoal and taupe. This is the look most people mean when they say Nain.

Where Nain rugs come from

Nain made its name in rug weaving later than the old centers. Isfahan, the big city to the west, took up carpet weaving again in the second quarter of the twentieth century and soon made fine rugs for export to Europe.^[1] Nain followed: carpets in a similar style, but in extremely fine weaving, were made there in the middle of the century.^[1]

So a Nain is best understood as a close cousin of the Isfahan rug. Many Isfahan patterns were drawn by professional designers, with swirling vines on a cream background as the usual choice.^[1] Nain took that look and made it its own. Najafabad, another town near Isfahan, wove the same family of designs at a coarser knot, and the Najafabad guide covers that side of it.

How to recognize a Nain

Start with the drawing. A Nain is a city rug, planned on paper before anyone sat at the loom. A designer can chart the pattern on squared paper, one square for each knot, and the weavers follow the chart.^[2] That is why the two halves of a Nain mirror each other so closely, and why the lines curve smoothly instead of stepping.

Then look closely at the pile. Persian weavers most often used the asymmetrical knot.^[3] Isfahan rugs, the models for the Nain look, are closely clipped and thin.^[1] The ones we sell all have a low pile, so the detail stays sharp from standing height. If you turn a corner over, the back shows small, even knots that match the front almost line for line.

Finally, the borders. Ours usually have several bands, a wider main border between narrow guard stripes, often in the same pale tones as the field. The effect is a soft frame rather than a heavy one. How to tell if a Persian rug is real covers the back-of-the-rug checks in more detail.

A cream Nain rug with dense navy vines, a round medallion and a burgundy-edged border under a walnut dining table for six, seen from above — A Nain, 8 feet 1 inch by 11 feet 7 inches. Navy vines cover the cream background so densely that it reads darker from a distance. A round medallion with a blue center sits inside a dark ring, and the border is burgundy.

A Nain rug or a Nain design?

A Nain rug is knotted by hand in Nain, while a rug sold as a “Nain design” only borrows the look. The words describe the pattern, the cream field, the round medallion and the blue vines, and say nothing about where or how the rug was made. A Nain design rug can be machine-made anywhere in the world. Turn one over before you buy. A hand-knotted Nain shows its pattern on the back in rows of small, separate knots, while a machine-made copy looks as regular as graph paper, and a tufted one hides behind glue and a cloth backing. If you are weighing a copy against the real thing, why hand-knotted rugs outlast machine-made ones explains how the two age.

The designs you will see

Most Nains follow one plan: a round medallion in the center, often a many-pointed rosette, with vines and small flowers spreading out to the corners. Some keep the vines light and open, so the cream background shows through. Others pack them close, which gives the rug more weight in a room.

Some of the small mats turn the scheme around. A navy background holds a lobed medallion with a blue center, framed by cream corners and a cream border. The runner does something different again, with a column of oval panels running its length, each holding a vase of pink and blue flowers. Now and then a small mat leaves the formal plan behind entirely, with birds and deer drawn among the flowers. For the shapes themselves, reading a rug explains what a medallion and a vine scroll are.

A small navy Nain mat with a lobed blue medallion and cream border on an oak floor in front of a linen armchair and a side table — A Nain, 1 foot 8 inches by 2 feet 4 inches. The small mats often reverse the palette: a lobed medallion on navy, with cream corners and a tan and cream border.

Colors: cream first, then blue

About half of the Nains we sell have a cream or ivory background. Navy comes next, and a few are deep red, burgundy, dusty blue, sage, teal or taupe. Blue does most of the drawing, from denim and dusty blue to navy, with rust, faded red and gold in smaller amounts. The borders are usually pale too, in cream, greige, taupe or tan.

That palette is the reason people choose a Nain. A cream Nain brings the drawing of a Persian rug into a room with white walls and light wood, without the weight of a red rug. If you want that look from other origins too, browse the cream rugs. If blue is the pull, our guide to blue Persian rugs covers what to pair with it, and the blue rugs collection gathers them.

A pale rug does ask one thing. Sunlight fades colors and dries out fibers, so keep a pale rug out of direct sunlight, or cover nearby windows when you can.^[4] Protecting a rug from sun, pets and spills has the simple version.

A narrow cream Nain runner with round panels of flower vases on dark oak boards down a white hallway, seen from high at one end — A Nain runner, 2 feet 7 inches by 9 feet 4 inches. Oval panels run down a cream background, each with a vase of muted pink and blue flowers.

Nain rug sizes, prices and value

Nains lean large. The biggest group is 8 by 11 feet or more, which is enough to hold a sofa, chairs and a coffee table together. The next group runs from about 6 by 9 to 7 by 10. Below that come a few rugs between about 3 by 4 and 6 by 9 feet, and a handful of small mats around 2 by 3 feet. If you are deciding between the two main living room sizes, 8x10 vs 9x12 shows how to measure.

The room-size Nains mostly cost between about $1,800 and $2,400. The 6 by 9 and 7 by 10 rugs mostly cost from about $930 to $1,500, and the small mats cost under $500. As with every origin, size drives the price more than the name, and what a rug costs explains why.

Within one size, a few things set what a Nain is worth. The finer the knotting, the longer the rug took to weave and the crisper the vines look. Condition comes next: an even pile, straight edges and intact ends count for more than age. A pale field also shows stains and wear sooner than a red one, so look at the cream ground in good daylight.

Where to go next

All of them are in the Nain collection. For the wider family of Persian city weaving, the ultimate guide to Persian rugs goes region by region. Before you settle on a size, the size guide shows how much floor to leave around the edges.