Carpet Samples

From March 12 through 26, the Manhattan dealer Doris Leslie Blau exhibited some 60 antique Samarkand carpets (circa 1880–1930). Samarkands, named after the market town where they were peddled in ancient times—a crossroads on the trade route between China and Europe in what is now Uzbekistan—originated in the villages of eastern Turkistan, in China. Typically woven in wool, they boldly borrow and blend the major textile symbols from India, China and the Middle East.

Gallery owner Nader Bolour acquired many of the rugs—which can be browsed in lush detail in the accompanying catalogue—at an English estate sale at Sotheby’s in 2006. “They enter the American market,” says the gallery’s director of antique carpets, Muffie Cunningham, “but not often.”

The carpets in the show ranged from small runners to larger formats and were priced between $12,000 and $80,000. The most expensive was a circa 1920 example measuring about 17 by 13 feet, in rich blue and chocolate brown with a bone-white background. By the exhibition’s end, it had yet to move, but interior designers had snapped up five smaller carpets. Eight more were poised to sell, having been loaned to clients on consignment.

This may sound like rather low volume. Cunningham, however, explains, “When we send out a catalogue, linked to an exhibition or not, we anticipate that 75 to 90 percent of the pieces will be bought within six months.” The show’s purpose, she adds, is educational rather than commercial—“but, of course, we were happy it immediately led to deals.”

"Carpet Samples" originally appeared in the May 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's May 2008 Table of Contents.