My love affair with Chinese carpets really began when I was a child in the 1960’s.
My paternal grandfather was the rug collector in our family and many of the pieces he purchased are still in use. A classic red Heriz from the 1920’s that was in our dining room for decades, now lives with my son Will in his apartment.
The Chinese carpets were purchased for their Florida home and in later years, a house on Cape Cod. One in particular was ivory with a pale aqua border, and that was my favorite. There were also pale green with rose, navy with magenta, purple, coral and gold.
Their whimsical air and casual elegance made them perfectly suited for slip covered sofas, wicker and glass topped tables, flowers, shells and sand.
Today, these carpets are rare. Finding them in any form of good usable condition is difficult. Their production period was brief. Here is a brief history.
CHINESE ART DECO CARPETS
Chinese Art Deco rug
During the 1920’s, the Chinese produced exquisite handmade carpets directly influenced by Art Deco style. These rugs reflected the period’s bold colors, motifs and scale, but with a distinctly Asian flair.
Chinese Art Deco Oriental Rug
The decos bloomed for less than 20 years in the eastern port city of Tientsin, approximately 85 miles from Peking. By the beginning of World War II, their manufacture was over. The market was largely western, but the art was by no means entirely so. European artists of the 19th century had fallen in love with all things Chinese and Japanese; this “orientalism” was pervasive in European popular culture as well as in fine art. Chinese artists studying abroad in the early decades of the 20th century were enthralled by the uninhibited spirit and palate of the Impressionists, post-Impressionists and Fauves whose work they saw in Paris or absorbed second hand at art schools in Tokyo.
Chinese rug designers used the wild Fauve palate as a setting for their own design themes. The colors and color combinations in many of the Chinese deco rugs are truly extraordinary; magenta grounds with gold borders, burgundy with lime green, coral with fuschia, copper with emerald. The designers did not desert their traditional indigos and beiges, but they interspersed them with colors theretofore unimaginable in Chinese carpet making.
Most of the decos use floral motifs, which for centuries had been favorite subjects in Chinese painting.
The flowers best loved by the Chinese appear in the deco rugs; lotus, peonies and spider mums among them. Birds, bats and butterflies, hanging flower baskets, pagodas, bridges and riverboats, scholars’ rocks, Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist symbols, are common design elements in these rugs. These motifs have significant meaning in Chinese art and many of the rugs can be read as wishes for prosperity, longevity and good luck.
Chinese Art Deco Rug
In the decos, the designers abandoned the symmetry and even handed use of space that characterized earlier Chinese rugs, at least in part through the influence of Japanese art. Their carpet designs were deliberately streamlines and off-center. The relative unfussiness and openness of these rugs contributed to their appeal.
Tientisn rugs used wool pile on a cotton foundation. Many are very tightly knotted as Bidjar rugs are; they were beaten tightly in the weaving process, which adds to their heavy handle and great durability. The weft threads are barely visible on the backs. The eye travels vertically along uninterrupted hillocks of pile thread.
Chinese Oriental Rug
Until recent years, the decos were scorned by “serious” rug collectors. They were fashion statements. In the past 20 years they have come into their own and interest has heightened. The resurgence in Art Deco furniture has also increased their popularity. As these carpets are not approaching 100 years old, what has survived in good condition are some of the finer, more interesting pieces.