Tabriz Garden Carpet Size: 9’6 x 12’6 Spring comes but once a year and in most of Persia it is indeed fleeting. So why not make it more enduring and bring it inside during the hot and dry summers, and the cold, windy winter? Thus was born the garden (or chahar bagh, lit. four part garden) carpet. The first, as far as literary sources go, was created in the 7th century A.D. for the Persian king Khusrau ( Chosroes), and employed silk, precious metal thread and precious stones to delineate and decorate a flatwoven carpet of enormous size. Sadly, nothing remains of this masterpiece. The trail pete ..read more

                                                    Size: 9’11 x 13’7 Modern flatweaves, here just wefts and warps, have continued vintage traditions, working in full-width bands, but with simplified and softened tones, and let abrash (semi-intentional color variation) create ripples,  water or sand effects. Aerial perspective is suggested by varying the band width. Hemp (a vegetal cellulosic fibre) takes dyes differently from wool (animal protein fibre).  ..read more

The Beauty of Serapi Carpets As perpetually fashionable as they are collectible, traditional Heriz luxury handmade rugs are skillfully woven in vibrant colors and emphatic geometric designs. Serapi carpets are a quality designation for Heriz pieces of a firmer weave, shorter pile and finer quality. There is no village of Serapi among the thirty-odd towns in the Heriz weaving district. The simplicity and striking character of these carpets, along with their basic two-dimensional flat patterning and primary colors has made then almost like room sized Kazaks and they have always been popular in ..read more

Ikat Design Charcoal and Gray Zoe Rose Hi Lo Collection This carpet, which can be ordered in custom sizes, is even more interesting than it looks! First, consider the high-low effect. Not just any high-low, but a ridged granularity following the warps. While the vast majority of old and new carpets knot on every warp, this unusual type leaves a center warp free between pairs of knots. We can see this clearly on the back where pairs of knots cover four warps, but leave one continuous column uncovered. This results in a broad ribbing effect on the front, perpendicular to the rows of knots. Then ..read more

Here at Lavender Oriental Carpets  we are always aware of the most au courant trends in interior design and how oriental rugs, especially ours, can help advance them. Thus we begin a blog post series commenting on recently published interiors employing oriental rugs with our pieces instead of the illustrated examples. Open and modern, clean and uncluttered, reduced to the essentials. A recent article in Elle Décor shows off a modernist Mexican villa with lots of glass and plentiful wood accents everywhere. In the living room copious light brown neutral wood accents are splashed with colo ..read more

Donegal Gallery Carpet 6.3 x 14.11 Sort of an Irish Oushak with a slate blue ground displaying a repeat of semi-geometric buds and flowers along with sawtooth medallions. Unlike other Donegal’s, there is nothing Celtic about this unique carpet. The palette is a variant on blue and white, but not oriental. The narrow borders just barely constrain the dynamic field which pushes underneath in all directions. The spacious layout makes the carpet seem larger than it is. The Arts and Crafts movement originated in England in the second half of the 19th century as a reaction against mass-produced ma ..read more

French Baroque Silk Damask Textile 2.1 by 5.2 17th Century Going for Baroque? Everything is dramatic. Think Caravaggesque paintings. Sculpturesque carved furniture. Everything is designed to impress. This textile, originally a section of a longer bolt, displays more than one repeat of a bold, complex cartouche and acanthus pattern in yellow-ochre and raspberry-red. The twisting foliage makes it three dimensional. What a great wall piece! You don’t have to be fluent in art history or in the language of period decoration to appreciate this eye-catching object. It is a full loom width and in ..read more

Gabbeh rugs in colorful, totally abstract styles, are a recent innovation and one of the best things to happen to the oriental rug in a long time. What can be bolder than a plain orange diamond medallion set on an equally undecorated slate reserve, further set within abrashed red triangular corners? How informal and yet how rigorous in the best design sense. ‘Gabbeh’ mean ‘unclipped’  and antique Persian tribal examples have a shaggy pile in natural sheep wool tones, but modern pieces are more compact with shorter, erect piles. These pieces are totally abstract and value impact over orna ..read more

It’s always interesting to learn about conservation or restoration. Restoring any antique is a specialized job and requires knowledge of the item, together with an understanding of the restoration process and as to what can and cannot be achieved. Lida Lavender brings her wide knowledge of the subject, to this field. She has a team of experienced restorers both in the USA and overseas and she knows where the best results will be obtained. During the process and depending on the extent of the repair, Lida will keep a close eye on the progress and her eye for detail, will ensure a first class r ..read more

Let’s take a look at the increasingly popular high-low, high and low, high-low contrast, high-low monochrome, multiple level, multiple technique; lots of high-low carpets, and all attempt to be totally au courant. Depending on the material used they should be within a budget that would allow most people to include in their interior design. But this carpet is much more than a mere high-low textured piece. Here the look of the front is significantly driven by the look of the back. It really is not a bi-colored rug at all and this is partially, at least, the doing of the back manifesting itself ..read more