.m mm 



■-'■iM:'::i «.«^>;f- ,,„,,„ „ 



fxf 









Xi'UtiJS 



:?^:^ 



Figure 22. — Floor covering, American, early 20th century. This piece of list carpeting is 3 feet wide and 10 

 feet long. Its warp is brown, with the two vertical stripes of multicolor yarns. The weft is tan and 

 brown strips of cotton cloth. It is perhaps similar in appearance to the ordinary list carpeting of the l8th 

 century. (USNM 393800; Smithsonian photo 48699.) 



VENETIAN 



Venetian carpeting is perhaps more rightly con- 

 sidered a 19th- rather than an 18th-century floor 

 covering since it does not seem to have appeared here 

 much before 1800. According to the sources studied, 

 Andrew S. Norwood was one of the first persons to offer 

 it to American shoppers. In 1799, when he opened 

 his "Carpet Store," Norwood announced in the Xew- 

 Tork Gazette and General Advertiser that his merchandise 

 included Venetian carpeting "1-2 yd, 3-4 and 7-8" 

 yards wide. Newspaper advertisements dating after 

 the turn of the century, such as those in the Federal 

 Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertiser of October 18, 

 1805, and January 8, 1808, indicate that Venetian 



carpeting was available in "1-2 5-8 3-4 & 4-4" 

 yard widths. 



Just where or why the carpeting received its name is 

 puzzling. That the carpeting inay have originated or 

 currently been made in Venice, on the one hand, 

 seems doubtful in view of the statement in Webster's 

 An Encyclopaedia of Domestic Economy that "it is not 

 known that what we call Venetian carpeting was ever 

 made in Venice." On the other hand, however, 

 Thomas Sheraton in his Cabinet Dictionary says that 

 Venetian carpet was one of the "sorts, which have 

 their names from the places where they are 

 manufactured." As to its appearance, however, 

 there is less doubt. "Venetian carpet" is described 



PAPER 59: FLOOR COVERINGS IN 18TH-CENTURY AMERICA 



47 



