Nain | 200 x 127 cm | Nr. Z-2032

Nain

Delivery time	2 days
Origin	Persia
Dimensions	200 cm x 127 cm (= 2.54 m²)
Construction	hand-knotted
Material	Pile: wool (hand-spun, natural dyes)
knots	560.000
Edition	one-of-a-kind piece

Origin

Nain is one of the best-known rug provenances (source, origin) in Iran. The town of Nain lies north-west of Isfahan and has a long weaving tradition. Before the Qajar dynasty (1794 - 1925), the finest cloaks for noblemen – known as abas – were made here. Under the influence of Western culture, the traditional cloak was displaced as clothing by the suit. The weavers shifted their business and began knotting rugs.

The rugs from Nain owe their unmistakable patterns and colour combinations above all to the master weaver Hadj Fatollah Habibian Naiini. He limited himself to fewer than ten colours at the loom and so laid the foundation for the colour composition of the Nain rugs that are still so popular today. To this day the base colours are usually white or beige and blue, although Nain rugs in red, green and yellow are appearing more and more often. Floral patterns whose contours are accentuated with silk are typical. Thanks to their understated elegance and restraint to just a few shades, Nain rugs also sit beautifully in modern interiors.

Nain rugs are distinguished by four quality grades, which are given in Lah (the Persian word for layer). Lah describes the number of threads twisted together to form the warp. The more threads are used, the thicker the warp and therefore the knots, and the lower the knot density.

Material

The technique used to prepare the materials for this Nain's pile is more than 200 years old. The wool was dyed with natural colours and spun by hand. Dyeing with natural or plant-based colours is more complex, more costly and more time-consuming than dyeing with chemical dyes. For a luminous red, for example, you need around one kilo of ground madder root as dyestuff per kilo of wool. For a strong yellow that isn't too pale, you even need two kilograms of weld per kilo of wool. Spinning the wool is time-consuming and labour-intensive as well. And fewer and fewer people still know how to spin wool by hand.

But the effort is worth it: dyeing with natural colours allows the high-quality wool to keep its natural oil content. Wool that has been dyed with natural colours and spun by hand creates fascinating, shimmering patterns. The charm of hand-spun wool, with its slight irregularities and natural shades, comes into its own as a contrast in modern interiors, but equally in rooms furnished in a more traditional or country style.

The weft and warp threads of this Nain are made of cotton. This versatile material is tear-resistant and elastic, which makes it especially well suited to a hard-wearing foundation weave.