T is not altogether surprising that in a most materialistic age many of a race distinguished more for its utilitarian than artistic accomplishments should fail to see in Oriental carpets high artistic expression; yet during the last twenty years choice specimens have been sold for sums which not only are very large, but show a tendency to increase with each succeeding year. In 1893 a woollen rug, known as the Ardebil carpet and regarded, on account of its beautiful designs and exquisite colours, as one of the finest products of Oriental art, was purchased for the South Kensington Museum. Since it had a length of thirty-four and a half feet with a breadth of seventeen and a half, the price of £2500, which was the sum paid, was at the rate of twenty dollars per square foot. At an auction sale in New York in 1910,[1] a woollen rug five and a half feet long by three and three quarters wide was sold for the sum of $10,200, or at the rate of four hundred and ninety-one dollars per square foot; and a silk rug seven feet and two inches long by six feet and four inches wide was sold for the sum of $35,500, or at the rate of nine hundred and thirty dollars per square foot. As it was the general opinion of connoisseurs that the prices paid for these two rugs were low, and as it is well known that these rugs are not more valuable than some others of equal size, it is not unreasonable to assume that many of the best judges of Oriental rugs would declare that at the present time the sum of five hundred dollars per square foot is a fair price for some antique woollen rugs, and the sum of one thousand dollars per square foot a fair price for some antique silk rugs.
