International studio (39.1909/1910(1910))

Rugs After Oriental Designs

UK

HI

of the most useful
designs in furniture,
did not advance
along the lines of
weaving floor cover-
ing, and the rug
makers of the Ori-
ent have never lost
their preeminence.
Persia has always
supplied rugs to the
rest of the world,
from the days when
the Western world
centered about the
Mediterranean t o
the present. The
loom is an aborigi-
nal instrument, and
in its crude and un-
developed types has

Courtesy oj m. J. whittaii f ound its natural

the finest rugs of kermanshah were made in the governor's palace sphere of perma-

nence in the slowly

ACHINE-WOVEN RUGS AFTER moving East. Not that even in the center of the
ORIENTAL DESIGNS older rug weaving some of the effects of modern me-

chanical advances have not been visible; but where
The floor covering is one of the first this is the case the action of a tincture of the new
and most important elements in any wine on the old bottles has not been of the best,
problem in interior decoration. The material, of Collectors are careful to discriminate between the
course, in the
usual climate of
our latitudes, is
found in rugs or
carpets, with an
increasing ten-
dency toward the
use of rugs. But
the problem lies in
the selection of
the woven mate-
rial. As in the
case of furniture,
modern design has
made compara-
tively little head-
way in popularity.
In the period to
which preference
reverts, however,
there is an obvious
difference, for our

M

Colonial times, Courtesy oj M. J. Whittaii

which afford some the shiraz is often called the mecca rug

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