Oriental Rug 101

A good schematic for understanding the disciplines that historically produced hand woven Oriental rugs is City, Village and Tribal. City and Village Oriental Rugs are often also described as Formal Floral and Informal Floral.

I had been employed in the Oriental rug trade since 1959 and when I first started my own business in 1966 it was buying and selling old and antique Oriental rugs.  The previous two years had been spent working for Mustapha Avigdor born in 1879, one of the luminaries of the Boston Oriental rug trade.  […]

Scattered throughout the rug producing countries of the Middle East are numerous tribal groups of various ethnic origins, the remnants of various historic migrations or incursions.  For example, The “TURKS” of the Republic of Turkey are comprised of numerous tribal groups such as the AK KOYUNLU, KARAKOYUNLU and YURUKS etc.  The same is true of […]

Authentic BIDJARS are woven in Persian Kurdistan, a mountainous undeveloped province of IRAN inhabited largely by KURDS of various tribal groups.   Living a rural lifestyle in a remote area they have had little communication with the central government.  The fact that they speak a different language and are devout practitioners of the SUNNI branch of […]