Nain Rug

Nain Rug
Design of Nain Rug (Rugman)
General information
Name	Nain Rug
Original name	قالی نایین
Alternative name(s)	Nain Carpet
Origin	Iran: Isfahan
Category	City
Technical information
Common designs	Lachak Toranj, Afshan
Common motifs & patterns	Like to Isfahan Rug
Common colors	Cream, Beige, Crimson, Navy Blue, White, Blue
Dyeing method	Natural, Synthetic
Pile material	Wool, Silk
Foundation material	Cotton, Silk
Knot type	Asyemmetrical (Persian), Jufti

Nain rugs originate from Nain, located in central Iran, just south of Isfahan. Prior to the 2nd World War, Nain was a center of fine textiles. The shift to the production of fine Persian carpets came after the war. Nain rugs are in such high demand worldwide that there are many counterfeits produced in India and Pakistan being sold as authentic. Always purchase from a reputable dealer in order to avoid disappointment. The Habibian workshop is reputed to produce the finest quality Nain rugs. These are very difficult to come by as they are woven in limited quantity. Even more rare is a signed piece. Master craftsmen weave Nain rugs using Persian knots. Experts use a different measurement called LAA, a Farsi word meaning layers, to define the quality of Nain rugs. LAA refers to the number of threads forming each fringe at the end of the carpet. The LAA number on Nain rugs is a good indicator of the price. As the LAA numbers decrease, the price proportionately increases.

History

Nain is a town located in the Isfahan Province of central Iran. In the second quarter of the twentieth century, a number of families from Nain started producing rugs with ISFAHAN patterns. Prior to this there was no commercial carpet industry in Nain. Nain quality is counted by the thickness of the warp in the foundation, with four-, six-, nine-, or twelve-ply used. Four-ply is considered the very finest in quality. The warp is always machinespun for uniformity. For several decades up until the 1970s, Nain weavers utilized six-ply warps that were fine in quality. The famous Nain master weaver HABIBIAN made the highest-quality rugs using a four- or six-ply warp. His carpets are signed “Habibian," in Farsi, and are considered valuable today. With the growing demand, Nain manufacturers began to produce and market nine-ply and twelveply carpets starting in the last quarter of the twentieth century. They were made for lower-budget consumers with the same coloration and designs, but in a good to very good grade quality. During this period, carpet producers in the town of Nain and the surrounding area were not able to handle the volume of requests of the world market, and Nain carpet producers began to establish looms in other Iranian provinces such as KHORASAN, SHAHR KURD BAKHTIARI, YAZD, and many other locations to weave Nain style carpets mostly in nine-and twelve-ply qualities to meet the increasing demand. Nains were marketed for foreign and domestic highend consumers.
No sample or any other evidence is available to show when the art of carpet weaving began in Nain. It is likely that the existence of other profitable industries, cloak weaving for example, was a hindrance to the development of carpet weaving there.
After the downfall of such first-class textile products as the shawl of Kerman and the velvet and silk fabrics of Kashan that happened in the wake of the rapid growth of textile industry last century, the third in line to fall victim was the Naini abā, This proved to be a blessing as it triggered abā weavers to resort to weaving very fine carpets. A more precise date for the trend was when the first modern school was established in Nain in 1917 by Mirza Bagher Khan Adib. Later, Mirza Jalāl Khan Naini, a superintendent of the school from 1917 to 1928, opened another school in Na'in at his own expense to provide carpet-weaving training to those boy pupils who could not continue their education beyond elementary level. He brought two weaving masters from Isfahan (Mirza Hossein and Mirza Javād Sajjadi) to instruct the pupils. At about the same time, a teacher from the city of Arak named Mirza Ali Mohammad, who had learned all the arts and crafts related to carpet making in his home town, immigrated to Na'in with his wife. The lady began to train girl weavers in Nain.
Historically, the growth of carpet weaving in Nain came about concurrently with the glorious boom of carpet industry all over Iran in early 20th century. Following a relatively short halt in the activities of foreign companies during World War I, Iranian carpet merchants and companies became active again. The establishment of the Iranian Carpet Authority in 1930, the handicraft vocational school (where a group of carpet designers taught carpet-pattern designing) in 1932, and the Iran Carpet Company in 1935, all point to the rapid revival of carpet industry at the time. Clearly, Nain was not left out of the bandwagon and its products soon found their way into the markets of Isfahan. Nain carpet makers had in their employ the incontestably skilful cloak weavers of Nain who would soon emulate their counterparts from Isfahan, Kashan and Arak both in the drawing of designs and in the act of weaving carpets. With the advent of World War II and the ensuing slump in international carpet markets, the weavers of Nain reverted to their former profession of cloak-weaving. According to Cecil Edwards, there were 150 carpet weaving looms in Nain at that time (1949-1951).
From among early Naini carpet makers, two names stand out in prominence: Habibian brothers, Haj Mohammad and Haj Fathollah, whose names still lend enormous credit to Nain carpet. Other notable people who played a significant role in the develpment of the carpet industry in Nain inclue Haj Mohammad Ali Mofidi (active in cotton as well as carpet trade), Borhāni, Pahlavan Safa, Hamid Khamesi, Hamid Mohammadi, Haj Reza Ghanbari, Hossien Mosahebi, Kalantari, and Ajabi Naini.

Materials

Foundation and Pile

Nain rugs and carpets have a cotton foundation, a high-quality wool pile, and silk outlines for the design elements.
With the reputation it has won in world markets, Nain carpet does not belong to the category in which the use of coarse Iranian wool may be seen as an advantage. Nain carpet wool is of a delicate type with a high proportion of the finer quality known as soft-pile or "fleece" wool, obtained from fully pure new wool and with a fineness above the normal standards of Iranian wool. Nain is thus one of the rare cases of the use of soft wool of non-Iranian origin in Persian carpetry.

Techniques and structures

Color and dyeing

Nains are also known for their light pastel coloration. A typical ivory Nain carpet has limited reds or dark blue in the flowers or other design elements. Light greens, light blues, or light gray are frequently employed for the field. In addition, a mixture of other pastel tones is woven for the borders, flowers, palmettes, and design elements. In general, all Nain carpets have a delicate and muted look. The coloration and use of silk highlights in the design became fashionable, and many looms were added in the town and surrounding areas to weave carpets.
Basic Colours: ivor (cream or off-white), light khaki, dark khaki, bown, brick-red, indigo, azure, dark blue, sky blue, madder red or crimson, brownish ("rat") grey
Subsidiary Colours: jade, olive brown, green, copper (pink)
natural and traditional colours, owing a major portion of its reputation to its vegetal dyes. But regrettable as it is, by ignorance or need, many a dyer in the region has opened the door of his workshop and vat to a variety of synthetic dyes about which he knows little or nothing.
Save for minor differences, the dyeing method with natural dyes in. Nain is similar to the methods in other carpet weaving centres that use traditional dyes. Despite the supplementary use of synthetic dyes in limited quantities, natural dyes have maintained their dominance in the whole region. Of the colours used in Nain carpet, eleven are basic and four subsidiary.
Natural colours are obtained in major part from pomegranate peel, walnut crust, madder roots, weld and vine leaves as well as from qermezdāneh – the insect cochineal, which is a major source of red pigment, and which lends its Persian name to "crimson". Industrially produced indigo (indigotin) is usually used for tones of blue and azure. Yellow is obtained from weld, a mixture of weld and indigo yields green, brownish ("rat") grey is made from pomegranate peel, and orange from a combination of weld and madder roots. Acetic acid is a supplementary substance in dyeing yarns (earlier, lemon peel and qaraqorut – boiled, thichened whey - containing the acid were used for the purpose). Potash alum is used as dye mordant.
Formerly, qermezdaneh (cochineal) had mutch wider application in Nain carpet and is still in use today – though not so widely – for its appeal and fame. The high price and low supply of cochineal have raised the demand for synthetic dyes for crimson, and this may well be the reason for the gradual shift from the brilliant ruby reds in earlier Nain carpets to the brownish reds of the later times.

Motifs and Designs

The designs were similar to the Shrub motifs of Isfahan master weaver SHORESHI that were popular during this period, as well as the traditional Isfahan Shah Abbas designs with palmettes, leaves, and vines in the allover or medallion styles. The most original patterns used in Nain carpets are composed of those traditionally recognized as Shah-Abbasi (with floral and leaf motifs mainly in the form of lotus blossoms), eslimi (arabesque) corner-medallion, ornate pendants and other patterns associated with Iranian traditional folk arts. Such proper use of traditional patterns with special colouring has won Nain carpet a distinction – an extraordinary identity – that is recognized the world over. There are other traditional patterns and designs artistically worked into the carpet that are referred to by special terms in the Persian arts lexicon, for example: gonbad (i.e., dome, depicting the inner surface of a dome), Haj Khanomi (depicting a window to a garden), derakhti (tree forms), ghabi (panel), mehrabi (mihrab or nitche), moharramat (featuring parallel, usually vertical stripes), afshan (overall repetition), latchak-toranj (corner-medallion), katibei (inscription), and tarikhi (historical monuments).

Weaving techniques

The Persian (asymmetric) knot is always used. The formats range from small mats and pillows to the rare rugs and carpets in palace dimensions. Nain weavers are credited with being the first to outline design elements and flowers with silk highlights. This concept was successful and created competition with the popular Isfahan silk foundation rugs.
Nain carpets have Farsi knots and double weft. The weave is done with high technical precision: normal weaving flaws such as off-line twists, missing wefts, uneven weaves, off-shade colours and wrong knots are seen very seldom and the quality of production is of high standard. in domestic and international markets, given that such factors as the quality of the weave, the stability of the colours and the durablity of the texture all play a significant role in this classification.
Looms are generally of wood, though there have been recent attempts to have them replaced with metal frames. Loom installation, warp-running and carpet dismounting methods are the same as those in use in Isfahan and Kashan, all being done by individuals that have great dexterity in their jobs. As a great many of carpets are woven inside village houses by women who are not normally bound by time, the pressure on the weaver is usually not so intense.
The first finish treatment of the carpet is done during the weaving. The final finish is performed after dismounting.
Nain has gained fame as a successful centre for large-size quality carpets, perhaps due to standardized designs that, as a rule, induce greater speed. Although there has been a fall in the production of large-size carpets, the use of modern mechanical tools for surface washing, singeing (to remove bristles and fleece from the back) and finishing remains a necessary investment. Nain weaving and finishing workshops are generally well-lighted, which is another factor for the high quality of their product.

Bibliography

• Abraham Levi Moheban, (2015), The Encyclopedia of Antique Carpets: Twenty-Five Centuries of Weaving, NewYork: Princeton Architectural Press.
  
• Shirin Souresrafil, (1997), Nain Carpet, Tehran: Farhangan.