Rugs Made to Order in the Orient 
By RICHARD MORTON 
W E Americans in the nineteenth century were 
so proud of our machinery and its power 
to multiply, that we came almost to be 
proud of being able to buy “ store clothes. ” Ready¬ 
made was the order of the day and “bargains” were 
bait at which the rich nibbled as well as the poor. 
Competition was supposed to be the life of trade and 
not how good was the eager question, but how cheap. 
Happily Europe has reacted decoratively and 
artistically against our influence, and we ourselves 
are beginning to comprehend what the reaction 
means. Makers of useful objects for the home are 
awakening to the new demand for beauty. Even the 
manufacturers of steam radiators are attempting— 
though unsuccessfully as yet—to combine beauty 
value with use value. In Persia the influence of 
machine methods has hardly been felt at all; in 
Turkey but little. This is apparent in the Oriental 
rugs that come from these countries. 
Formerly it was necessary to select Oriental rugs 
from the stock of some merchant; and if the size 
was large, or the shape unusual, or the coloring 
desired was uncommon, it was often impossible to 
find anything suitable. 
The demand for large Oriental rugs has now so 
stimulated the makers that sizes up to 35 x 50 can be 
seen in great variety in New York showrooms. The 
shapes too have adapted themselves to American needs 
when American needs are rectangular with length 
from one quarter to one half greater than the width. 
But it occasionally happens that an interior calls for 
a large rug twice as long as it is broad, or with curved 
ends, or without center field. And it often happens 
that for some particular decorative scheme, an orig¬ 
inal design in original coloring is imperative. 
That is when the new opportunity to have rugs 
made to order in the Orient is appreciated. It is no 
longer necessary to use the “scoured” wool of Europe 
and America, or to trust to machine looping and 
aniline dyes. The real thing—Persian wool dyed 
with Persian vegetable dyes and knotted by hands 
that inherit ancestral skill—can be secured at prices 
that are surprisingly low, when we consider that 60 
per cent duty has to be paid to let the foreign product 
pass the customs inspectors. A 9 x 12 in coarse 
weave and solid color, with deep pile, sells here for 
only $135. Finer weaves with more intricate design 
run up to $1,000 for a rug of the same size. And 
accurate reproductions of some of the Persian hunting 
rugs of the sixteenth century cost still more. But the 
value is there—the permanent value—the value that 
makes European museums hungry after antique speci¬ 
mens and that will make American museums also 
hungry, when art sense is more highly developed. 
The wool is grown on the backs of sheep that have 
been bred for centuries to grow the wool most suit¬ 
able for rugs. The yarn is dyed with vegetable dye 
by dyers who understand how to make it set without 
destroying the life of the wool. In Europe and Amer¬ 
ica it is the usual practice to employ all the art of the 
chemist to assist in extracting the lanolin or oil that 
fills each scaly woolen tube. Only then can the 
wool be made to absorb the aniline dyes. This process 
kills the staple, for the oil is the life of the wool. With¬ 
out the oil the wool is harsh to both eye and finger, and 
has to be oiled up after dyeing to give it even a transi¬ 
tory lustre. Other materials may not be injured by 
aniline dyes. At any rate so much is claimed in their 
behalf. Wool is destroyed by them. Stuff's that might 
last centuries if vegetable dyed, wear but a few years 
and are not pleasing while they do last. To purchase 
them is to waste money. The master weavers not 
only inherit much from the traditions of the past, but 
devote such a large part of their efforts to reproducing 
masterpieces that they acquire by practice the most 
intricate technique of antiquity. 
At this point I should like to quote Sir C. Purdon 
Clarke, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 
New York City, whose ideas are as much ahead of 
America to-day as they were of England when he 
first assumed the directorship of the Victoria and 
Albert Museum at South Kensington. He says: 
“One source of most of the bad designs in modern 
rugs and, I may as well add, in many other art crafts, 
is owing to a mistaken attempt to produce something 
new and original. None of the patterns we so 
greatly admire in old Oriental rugs were original 
designs; they were but slow developments of various 
types of surface decoration, where the forms, orig¬ 
inally symbolic, were regarded with superstitious 
respect and the colorings followed rules which were 
seldom deviated from. The designer’s whole effort 
was therefore narrowed into perfecting forms he 
already understood, in attending to niceties of sha¬ 
ding and in refining his predecessor’s work, and this, 
going on from age to age, resulted in a perfection 
which could not be obtained by other means.” 
The only permanently beautiful floor covering is a 
rug knotted by hand out of woolen yarn that has been 
dyed in the Persian manner with vegetable dyes. 
And the introduction of closer business relations with 
the Orient makes it now possible to have Oriental 
rugs woven to order in any style of pattern—-Oriental 
or European—Persian sixteenth century or French 
eighteenth, or German twelfth, or English fifteenth, 
or Italian sixteenth. 
