Link Round-Up: Chinese Rug Links

For those of you that appreciate and enjoy Chinese rugs, here are a couple links you might find interesting.

Over on Cyber Rug Center, they have scanned every page of an old pamphlet from the 1920's, and the very beginning of the Nichols line of Chinese carpets. It covers a brief history of the company, and has manufacturing details, including materials, spinning and dyeing, as well as design. It also has cleaning suggestions, which neither Cyber Rug Centrer nor Rug Care Central endorse (you should always have a professional clean your hand-made carpets), but is fun to read in any case, for nostalgia's sake.

Also included are many vintage pictures. Pop on over and take a look, when you get a chance. HERE is a direct link to the story.

Also worth checking out is a terrific article on Chinese rugs over at the Tea and Carpets blog. It talks about the evolution of Chinese designs, and the fact that pile carpet weaving in China has a relatively short history (about 500 years) compared to other carpet weaving areas in Europe and the Middle East.

It also talks briefly about "pillar carpets", which I'd never heard of before.

The Pillar carpets were sometimes made in two halves to fit around a column. Pictured here is a column carpet from the 1880s in the Victoria and Albert Museum's collection.  Interestingly, special colors were reserved for special audiences. Yellow was reserved for royal use, such the court and temples, while red was for gift carpets exchanged between aristocrats.

Check out the rest of the article over at Tea and Carpets, as well as other terrific articles, including a recent one on Khotan Carpets.

The Fabled "Tabriz Bear" is Finally Caught and Skinned...

Thought to be a myth for centuries -- a myth used to frighten the children of rug weavers throughout the Middle East -- the "Tabriz Bear" has finally been caught, killed and skinned. 

Actually, the truth behind this photo is just as amusing. The people at the CS Post and Co. website managed to find a local artist who made this one-of-a-kind bear-skin/Tabriz hybrid, using an actual antique Tabriz (and an actual bear skin, for that matter). It is on sale at the moment for $1800 and will likely sell fast (so the link to the page likely won't be active long). 

But I grabbed the rest of the pics for your amusement, and shall post them below. But be sure to check out the link to their site in any case - who knows, perhaps you can be the lucky new owner! And tell your grandkids how you slew the fabled Tabriz Bear...

Link Round-Up

Hello all!

Some interesting things items floating around out there, as far as the rug world goes.

Over at Tea and Carpets, there's an article called Isfahan and the Safavids' Design of the World.

Here's the opening as a teaser, in case you'd like to read more...

If there is a single phrase that best evokes Safavid art, it might be "orderly excess."

Curiously, that is the same phrase that could be used to describe European art at the height of the Safavid Empire in the 17th century: Baroque.

But if Persia, too, had a Baroque period and Safavid carpets and other art forms show it, how did it develop and what was its goal?

The greatest builder of the Safavid era – Shah Abbas I – left the answers in a single place for both his contemporaries and for us to see.

You can read the rest of the article, and see the terrific group of associated pictures, by following THIS LINK.

Over at Barry O'Connol's webstie Spongo Bongo, I found a link to a picture gallery and brief article by Martin Erik Anderson on Sigmund Freud's rug collection. It's well worth looking at, by following THIS LINK.

And to end this post, I'm going to show you a picture I found over on The Rug Rag website. You won't believe this...

I can state plainly, we've never fielded a call from a client asking how to treat pig-related stains... here's hoping that day never comes...

Thanks

Dave Wagner

An Article on the Qashqai

The Tea and Carpets blog has a comprehensive article up now called The Qashqai and Other Tribal Carpets of Western Persia.

When Persian tribal carpets began to reach Europe at the start of the 19th century Europe, they often got a mixed reception.  One problem was where to put them.  They were typically of small size at a time when putting a large carpet across a big living room floor was the preferred choice. And their tribal designs were not considered particularly refined, at a time when "civilized" elegance was the style. So, Persian tribal rugs -- like Turkmen tribal rugs and many others with bold geometric designs – often found themselves relegated to the "man's" room in the house. The unspoken rule was: tribal rugs in the study; floral workshop rugs in the boudoir and parlor...

As usual, the article is interesting, and has many nice pictures. You can find the article by clicking this link.

The Most Expensive Rugs Ever

Every now and the, the Rug Rag posts stories about the rugs that have auctioned/sold for the most amount of money in a particular year. Well, they've assembled a list of the five most expensive rugs sold at to date, if that sort of thing interests you.

This Mid-17th century Kerman "Vase Carpet" sold for $9.6 million at Sothebies. Here is an article with more detail on this particular rug.

If you'd like to see the rest of the top 5, read the article on the Rug Rag by clicking this link.