Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern / A Handbook for Ready Reference

by Rosa Belle Holt

RUG-WEAVING IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES

In the preparation of this section of this work, there has been no attempt or desire to slight in any way the weaving industry of the West. It has not seemed advisable, however, to go into many details on the subject, for it is one easily learned from many sources by any one who desires. There is not the mystery about Occidental weaving that there is about Oriental, the latter perhaps appealing to our innate desire of acquiring knowledge difficult of access. A short account of rug-weaving in Europe and the United States will, therefore, be quite as satisfactory to the general reader as a more lengthy description.

Greek Rugs

Greek rugs are almost as ancient as Greece herself. Many an old love-song of this land has praised the skill of the woman deftly plying the hand loom. But if one expects to see the glory of ancient Greece, in its perfection of form and design, transmitted in any degree to the industry of modern rug-weaving he will be disappointed. From time immemorial rugs have constituted a most important part of the dowry of a young girl from the provinces. Even now the courting of a bride in Crete is often prefaced with the question whether the girl is skilled in the handling of a loom. But the modern Greek rug is seldom seen outside of its own country, for it is generally made for home use, and the weaver is not easily induced to part with it. Besides this, the foreign market would not be large for them, especially in competition with the well-known and excellent Oriental rugs.

Greek rugs are of two kinds—the heavy ones which serve for floor coverings in the winter, and the thinner, which are used all the year round. Both are made of home-produced wool, often with hemp woof, and are worked by women and girls only, in wooden looms of a primitive order.

Athens is the only place in Greece where rugs are produced in a factory. Under the patronage of Her Majesty the Queen, an Association for the Education of Poor Women exists. This philanthropic association has founded an industrial institution which employs four hundred women and girls in its various departments, of whom about thirty are engaged in rug-weaving. The best rugs are those purely Grecian in design and quality, and for these special orders are generally sent in. The rugs thus woven are durable and effective. Sometimes an attempt is made to imitate Turkish rugs, but without their superb effect. Coarse rugs of an inferior class are sold in the bazaars of Athens. The predominant color in these is a dingy white, with stripes of various colors at the ends. The rug is really durable, though the noticeable, fuzzy nap soon wears off.

Moorish and Spanish Rugs

The Arab conquerors of Spain, or the Moors as they are often called, are believed to have taught the Spaniards and Venetians the art of rug-weaving. The rugs now known as Moorish are made by the descendants of this race. Their leading color is yellow, and in style and quality they resemble the so-called Smyrna rug. Antique Moorish rugs are found in the cathedrals of Toledo and Seville. These are relics of the thirteenth century and have geometric designs.

Morocco rugs are Moorish. Those of modern manufacture are very inferior. The poorest aniline dyes are used, and it seems hardly possible that the splendid specimens of the fourteenth to the end of the seventeenth century were woven in Morocco. But the rugs in the Sultan's palace at Fez prove this fact, as does the splendid antique rug in the possession of Prince Schwarzenberg, at Vienna. Fez was formerly one of the chief seats of the rug industry, which is now limited mostly to Rabat. Unfortunately, aniline dyes are now largely used, and even the designs are less artistic than in former years. There is, however, a rug not known to the trade, and only rarely met with outside its home. It is the Tuareg rug, and is woven by the Berbers, a tribe occupying the desert south of Algeria and Tunis, and known as Tuareg or Tawarek by the Arabs. The Tuaregs are great traders, and control the principal caravan routes. Their rugs are woven by the women, and seldom if ever leave the families which weave them. The most beautiful are used as shrouds, and are buried with their owners.

Tunis sends out a few rugs woven at Kairuan. They are thick, heavy, but inferior in many ways to rugs of Oriental workmanship.