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Oriental Rugs (Smithsonian Illustrated Library of Antiques)
Oriental Rugs - Smithsonian Illustrated Library of Antiques Author:Walter B. Denny From the earliest known rug in existense--the 2500-year-old Pazyryk Carpet found in the Scythian ice tombs of Siberia--to carpets still woven in the immemorial way in today's rug-weaving world, Oriental Rugs introduces rugs to the reader as works of art rather than simply as utilitarian objects to be used and eventually discarded. After desc... more »ribing the techniques of rug weaving in detail and exploring the "rug belt," which stretches from the shores of the Mediterranean through the Middle East and all the way to China and India, the rugs of Turkey--the first rugs to be exported to the West, in the fifteenth century--are examined. In a close study of the designs, colors and textures of rugs, the author then takes us to the Caucasus and its famous dragon carpets, to Persia and its great medallion rugs of the classical period of oriental rugs--the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--which are associated with the magic names of cities like Tabriz, Isfahan, Kashan, and Kerman.
The rugs woven by the Turkoman nomads--so many of which found their way to the United States by the late nineteenth century--are viewed afresh in light of recent scholarship and a renewed interest in nomadic rugs. We end with the great, spectacularly pictorial Mughal court carpets of India and the complex rugs of China.
The handsome illustrations, some published for the first time in this book, work together with the text to illuminate the whole development of the art of rugmaking.
A chapter on collecting, a glossary of special terms, a list of further reading and a guide to public collections of rugs, where priceless ones can be seen, extend the usefulness of this concise work.« less