"A Convergence of Art, History, & Geography Through The Weaver's Hands." - Antique Rugs, Fine Persian Carpet Gallery

A Convergence of Art, History, & Geography Through The Weaver's Hands

By Richard-Jonathan Nelson

We are delighted to share with you this piece about antique art rugs written by Richard-Jonathan Nelson. Richard has co-headed our department of restoration specialists for many years, and is also a highly accomplished multi-disciplinary artist who constructs chromatically intense visual worlds. Here, expressed through his own vocabulary and insights as an artist, he eulogizes the singular achievement and contributions of 19th century Oriental rugs to the legacy of visual art.

Antique Oriental Rugs include a multitude of geometric, stylized floral and floral styles. This singular piece features heavily abstract, whimsical motifs that may well have originally derived from drawings on cave walls.

TURKISH MUDJUR
3' 11" x 6' 0" | circa 1850 | Connoisseur-Caliber
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Hand-woven antique Persian carpets from the Pre-Commercial Period (circa 1900 and earlier) are one-of-a-kind objects that are simultaneously art, craft, religious expressions, historical cultural artifacts, and decorative accessories. With their historic Middle Eastern provenance, they carry within them the fascinating, nuanced visual pattern language of the myriad specific regions in which they are produced.

Many Antique Persian and tribal rugs include depictions of animals and fowl. This close-up of a high-mountain Caucasian tribal rug reveals deeply stylized birds, goats, horses and camels.

CAUCASIAN SHIRVAN
3' 5" x 5' 0" | 3rd quarter, 19th century
Connoisseur-Caliber
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Top view of travelers' hard path among heavily snowed sharped mountains in Tchertovaia dolina, Russian Caucasus. Art by Bergue, Le Tour De Monde, 1861.

The 19th century Persian, Turkish and tribal rugs that are available today continue the centuries-long, cross-cultural dialogue of the Silk Road, which involves the history, production, consumption, transportation, aesthetic reinterpretation and contextualization of decorative motifs/influences from various cultures. They carry on the age-old legacy of skilled intergenerational craftsmanship, farming, and animal husbandry, and are the physical embodiment of the synergistic relationship between human beings, plants, and animals, combined with the artisan's deep understanding of the time-intensive process of cultivating the plants and animals used to produce them.

Valley below the mud-brick village of Kharanaq with ancient aqueduct and bridge, Silk Road, Iran.

The weavers of antique rugs lived in environments in which they were surrounded by nature and that featured various botanical forms, such as the intricately drawn flowering plants in this extremely refined piece.

PERSIAN TEHRAN GARDEN RUG
4' 7" x 6' 10" | circa 1875 | Connoisseur-Caliber
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Dye pots and the dyeing process are an age-old aspect of every Eastern culture.

As physical representatives of non-Western artistic abstraction, antique art carpets exemplify a deft stylization, interpretation, and distillation of the human figure, myriad natural elements, text, and storytelling through the medium of hand-woven fiber.

They also harness the chromatically complex nature of natural dyes that contain varied, multi-tonal hues and pigments and which stem from before the popularization of chemically derived dyes. The older natural dyes are artistic materials whose chroma and availability are ever shifting like the seasons. These antique carpets are the result of a unique combination of soil, weather and an age-old acumen that allowed the plants to robustly grow and yield exotic dyes that will never exist again.

The best 19th century rugs utilize an extremely wide palette of naturally dyed hues, including the serene earth tones, camel and blues of this piece woven in the high mountains of Persian Azerbaijan.

PERSIAN BAKSHAISH TREE OF LIFE CAMELHAIR
10' 5" x 13' 5" | 3rd quarter, 19th century
Connoisseur-Caliber
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As well, these Pre-Industrial-period carpets are objects that have influenced various aesthetic/decorative cultural shifts within both European and American textiles, from William Morris, the 1880s English textile designer with his swirling repeats, to the works of the 1960s to 1970s counterculture/craft movement and their fascination with the intricate, artisanal textiles of the Middle East and Asia.

Above: Exhibition of 1960's Women's Fashion at The Fashion and Textile Museum; London, England. Below: "Evenlode" textile design by William Morris (1834-1896).

19th century Oriental rugs embody the legacy of hand-weaving, one of the oldest forms of human craftsmanship, and are the progenitors of modern computing and binary coding. Their integration into the modern home also harkens back to the extensive use of tapestries in Medieval Asia and Europe as a means to insulate the home, while displaying the creativity of those who collect them.

Top view of travelers' hard path among heavily snowed sharped mountains in Tchertovaia dolina, Russian Caucasus. Art by Bergue, Le Tour De Monde, 1861.

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