Instead of adhering to original patterns several firms employing designers have added to the original motifs and sometimes in the border of a modern Chinese rug will be seen mixed motifs. Sometimes one part of a design will be taken from one border and part from another and these two will be so arranged as to form a so-called Chinese border.
These rugs are made in factories in China and also in Asia Minor, Austria, India and other countries, and I have actually seen them being woven in New York City.
The Great War bottled up the Dardanelles and prevented the exportation of Oriental rugs from Persia and Turkey but following the Armistice rugs from the Far East flooded the market. Before the war Chinese rugs and rugs from Chinese Turkestan were just beginning to be popular, and when other rugs were no longer to be found the Chinese captured the market. They lend themselves to many rooms where the strong colors of the modern Near-Eastern rug might not be harmonious. But as with all incoming carpets they also, when too strong in color, are dyed to please our taste by having a certain preparation put into the dye vats that softens the texture as well as the color.
The modern Chinese rugs come principally from Peking and Tientsin. In Nanking rugs similar to those of Peking are made. Several provinces in China make rugs coarser in quality than those made in Peking and Tien-tsin, but with interesting, if crude, designs. Mongolia and Manchuria (especially Mukden) now send many rugs to the United States and other foreign countries. The demand from all countries, the United States in particular, is responsible for the development of Chinese rugmaking to a large industry. In Shanghai a Chinese rug factory has been purchased by men from the United States who expect to enlarge and improve the output. No rugs from this factory are sold in China, either to the public or to buyers for American or any other foreign trade. Instead, the rugs are shipped to the United States and at stated intervals sold at auction to different buyers for the retail trade.
( Originally Published Late 1900’s )
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