Portrait of Isaac Royall and Family 

 by Robert Feke, 1741 

 [Courtesy of Harvard University and The Fogg Art Museum.) 



Figure 2. — A Turkey carpet used as a table cover is a prominent feature of this colonial painting which resembles 

 the earlier portrait of the Berkeley family by Smibert. 



at the new house were probably used as floor coverings 

 while the others, no longer in fashion as furniture 

 coverings, had been relegated to the attic or a room 

 upstairs. 



Further proof that Oriental carpets underwent a 

 change in function about the middle of the 18th 

 century is found in a newspaper advertisement in the 

 Boston Gazette of March 26, 1754." It announced the 

 sale of "a Parcel of valuable Household Stuff," 

 among which was "a very large Turkey Carpet, 



^ This and most other Boston newspaper references have been 

 taken from George Francis Dow, The Arts and Crafts in A'ew 

 Enfiland, 1704-1715 (Topsficld, Mass.: The Wayside Press, 



1927). 



measuring Eleven and an half by Eighteen and an 

 half Feet." From the size of the carpet there can be 

 little doubt that it was intended for any use other than 

 as a floor covering. A carpet of such ample propor- 

 tions must ha\e been very valuable when one realizes 

 that a Turkey carpet measuring only four and a half 

 by three feet was so prized by its owner as to warrant 

 the following advertisement in the Boston Xews-Letter 

 of February 20, 1755, that mentions items stolen 

 from a house, including "a Turkey Carpet of various 

 Colours, about a yard and half in length, and a Yard 

 wide, fring'd on each End" for which there was a 

 reward of three dollars. Some 25 years later "1 

 P[iece]s Turkey Carpet," presumably of small dimen- 

 sion, was valued at £4 in a Boston inventory, that of 



PAPER 59: FLOOR COVERINGS IN 18TH-CENTURY AMERICA 



